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

by Players of Gor [lit]

  him to come there, alone?”

  “How could it be done?” she asked, eagerly.

  page 103

  “I would wish your help,” I said.

  “Yes?” she said.

  “Some think he finds women too excruciatingly desirable,” I said.

  “Yes,” she said, “yes!”

  “I could approach him and tell him that I am acting as the agent of a rich, free

  woman, one who is much attracted to him and desires to serve him, even as a

  slave.”

  “I understand,” she said.

  “Do you think you could disguise yourself as a mere slave?” I asked.

  “Not to the collar!” she said.

  “Of course not,” I said. “Indeed, it is a premise of my plan that Mistress be

  understood to be a free woman.”

  “You would then have him come to the inn of Ragnar,” she said, “supposedly to a

  secret rendezvous.”

  “Mistress penetrates swiftly to the core of my plan,” I said.

  “The entrapment might best take place in an alcove,” she said, musingly,

  “wherein I might lie as bait.”

  “An interesting idea,” I granted her.

  “He enters the alcove, puts aside his weapons,” she mused, “and then my men, in

  the small quarters, he confined on three sides, set upon him.”

  “I salute the brilliance of Mistress,” I said.

  She clenched her small fists. “What a triumph!” she cried. “What a victory!

  Getting Bosk of Port Kar in my chains! Then delivering him, almost in passing,

  as a casual surprise, to Flaminius.”

  Flaminius, I gathered, was the name of her recent guest at this picnic and

  meeting. The name suggested the city of Ar, or one of her allies. I had once

  known a physician by the name of Flaminius, who was of Ar. They were not the

  same individual, of course. There are many common names on Gor, as, I suppose,

  in most civilizations. Tarl, for example, my name, tends to a familiar one on

  Gor, particularly in the northern areas, such as Torvaldsland and its vicinity.

  The commonness of names is even more acute with slave names. For example, common

  slave names on Gor are Tuka, Lana, and Lita. There are probably hundreds of

  girls on Gor answering to those names, and others, almost as familiar, which are

  similarly luscious. Earth-girl names, incidentally, as is well known, are often

  used on Gor as slave names.

  “Why should he listen to you?” she asked, suddenly, looking down at me.

  page 104

  “I am sure he trusts me,” I said.

  “Can you do this?” she asked.

  “You must understand,” I said, “that he may not even be at the fair.”

  “That is true,” she said, angrily. “Too, he might be there, and you might miss

  him.”

  “If he is there, I think I will be able to determine it,” I said.

  “How so?” she said.

  I shrugged. “I know him,” I said. “Too, I think I know certain of his favorite

  places.”

  “Excellent!” she said. “It might just work!” She regarded me. “If I let you out

  of my sight,” she said, “I think I shall put you in close chains. It should then

  be easy to recover you.”

  “In such chaining I could barely move,” I said. “It would certainly not

  facilitate my inquiries at the fair.”

  “Then two of my men must accompany you, surreptitiously.” she said.

  “This Bosk, I assure you,” I said, “is commonly an observant fellow. I doubt

  that he would fail to detect the presence of two loiterers in our vicinity.”

  “Then it is the chains for you, Brinlar!” she said, angrily.

  “As you wish,” I said, “but it would not seem likely to Bosk, surely, that a

  well-intentioned compatriot of Port Kar would be likely to approach him in close

  chains, would it?”

  “No,” she said, irritably, “it would not.”

  I shrugged.

  “Too, in many of the places Bosk might frequent,” I said, “it would even be

  difficult to gain admittance in chains. I would be dismissed as no more than a

  slave.”

  “If I permit this service,” she asked, “what would you wish in return?”

  “Perhaps Mistress might consider granting me freedom from her captivity,” I

  suggested.

  “No,” she said. “It is my intention to enslave you, with the others. But if you

  perform this service for me you might find favor in my eyes. I might even be

  tempted to treat you with somewhat greater indulgence than you might otherwise

  deserve. I might even keep you a personal tent slave. I might even give you

  pretty clothes to wear.”

  “Mistress is generous,” I said.

  “What assurance have I,” she asked, “that you will, whether successful or not,

  keep the rendezvous?”

  page 105

  “You have my word on it,” I said, “as a free man.”

  “I think we can do better than that,” she said. “If you do not return, your

  fourteen compatriots, one by one, one each Ahn, will be slain.”

  “I will return,” I said.

  “Word of your treachery will reach Port Kar,” she added. “men will hunt you.

  Too, sleen will be put upon your trail. Too, in the vicinity of the fair, your

  description will be circulated, as that of an escaped slave.”

  “Mistress has surely given me many reasons to return,” I said.

  “I think so,” she said.

  “But surely, she, in her modesty, has overlooked at least one significant

  motivation,” I said.

  “What is that?” she asked.

  “That I would wish to look once more upon her beauty,” I said.

  “You flatterer, Brinlar!” she laughed. “But you are not the first man who has

  been entrapped in the toils of my beauty. I have lured many, as it pleased me,

  to their downfall.”

  “Mistress is so beautiful,” I said, “that she could almost be a slave.”

  “It is true,” she said.

  “In the morning, then,” I said, “I shall go to the fair, to see if I may find

  this Bosk of Port Kar.”

  “Arrange with him, if you should encounter him,” she said, “to be at the inn of

  Ragnar at the eighteenth Ahn. I shall, in the meantime, send word to Flaminius

  to meet me there at the nineteenth Ahn. That will give me time to effect the

  capture, strip and chain the captive, and change into my prettiest clothes,

  ready to welcome Flaminius as though nothing out of the ordinary had happened.”

  “And tonight, Mistress?” I asked, anxiously.

  “Tonight,” she said, imperiously, “you will be hooded and chained, as usual,

  within the entrance to my tent. I am to be touched only if I please, and exactly

  as I please.”

  “Yes, Mistress,” I said. I saw that she still fea
red me, and herself, and, I

  think, men generally. She had not yet been able to cope with the sensations

  which I had induced in her. This is not surprising in a free woman. To be sure,

  such sensations can be terribly frightening to a free woman. They whisper to her

  of slavery. She is terrified to say “yes” to them, with all she knows this

  means, but aches and longs to do so, and will not be whole until she does.

  page 106

  “Hurry, Brinlar!” she said. “Hurry! Pick up the things!”

  “Yes, Mistress,” I said.

  “Until tomorrow!” she said. “Until tomorrow!”

  “Yes, Mistress,” I said, “until tomorrow.”

  page 107

  5 What Occurred in the Inn of Ragnar; I Will Return to the Camp of the

  Lady Yanina

  I pounded on the door of the old inn of Ragnar, now closed, on the old west

  road. It lies in the midst of certain other buildings, mostly now, too, closed

  and dark. I heard a movement behind one of the boarded-up windows. It was a bit

  past the seventeenth Ahn. The door opened a crack.

  “It is Brinlar,” said a voice, that of one of the men of the Lady Yanina. “I did

  not think you would return,” he said to me.

  “He is a fool,” said another of her men, from just within.

  “He fears the sleen,” said another.

  “Let him in! Let him in!” said the voice of the Lady Yanina.

  I was admitted into the dark vestibule of the inn, and the door was closed

  behind me.

  “Were you successful?” asked the Lady Yanina, anxiously.

  “Yes,” I said.

  “Marvelous!” she whispered.

  “He is intrigued,” I said. “He is eager to meet you. He is particularly

  impressed that you are so attracted to him that you, though a free woman, will

  serve him in the modalities of the slave.”

  “Superb!” she said. “The gullible fool!”

  page 108

  “He will be here at the eighteenth Ahn,” I said.

  “Marvelous, Brinlar,” she said. “Marvelous! It is all going perfectly!” AS my

  eyes became accustomed to the darkness, I could see that her five men were here.

  I had thought they would be. I knew they were not at the camp. I had stopped at

  the camp on the way back from the fair. I had wished to pick up some things. The

  “work chain,” heavily chained, secured between two trees, had not been guarded.

  They were unimportant to her now, I supposed. She wanted all of her men here. I

  could see, too, that she wore some form of belted robe. She was not veiled.

  “What are you carrying?” she asked.

  “Some wine, and things,” I said. “I took the liberty of stopping by the camp on

  the way back from the fair. I thought perhaps you might care for some

  refreshments. The wait until the nineteenth Ahn, and the arrival of your

  colleague, Master Flaminius, might be long. You might be hungry.”

  “You are a dream, Brinlar,” said the Lady Yanina. “You are a treasure!”

  “May I make a suggestion, Mistress?” I inquired.

  “Of course,” she said.

  “I would, if I were you, light a small lamp or two, illuminating the main hall

  and perhaps the selected alcove. This should suggest an atmosphere of delicate

  openness to Bosk of Port Kar, encouraging him to believe that he is eagerly

  awaited. The darkness of a seemingly deserted inn might appear ominous, perhaps

  suggesting a trap.”

  “Light two lamps,” said the Lady Yanina to one of her men, “one in the main hall

  and one in the first alcove.”

  He set about to accomplish her bidding.

  “You are very clever, Brinlar,” she said.

  “I would further suggest,” I said, “that you leave the door to the inn ajar, but

  that you make no particular effort to conceal your men.”

  She looked at me, puzzled.

  “I have informed Bosk,” I said, “that you might have men in attendance. After

  all, a free woman cannot very well be expected to traverse the old west road

  unattended. She might fall to a slaver’s noose and his iron. The men, however,

  while not attempting to hide themselves, are expected to remain unobtrusive.

  Thus the door is to be left tactfully ajar. In this fashion we will not have to

  devise hiding places for them, nor risk the loss of time, and perhaps the noise,

  perhaps alerting Bosk of Port Kar, of their emergence from concealment.”

  “Oh, splendid, Brinlar,” she said. “Splendid!”

  page 109

  The man was now completing the lighting of the second lamp. In a moment he had

  emerged from the alcove.

  “I would now encourage my men to sit about the table, there,” I said, indicating

  on e of the large rough-hewn tables, with benches, in the main hall. “I would

  further encourage them,” I said, “to sit there as naturally as possible, perhaps

  even partaking of the refreshments which I have brought.”

  “Do it,” she said.

  “Good,” said one of the men, taking the sack from me which I had stocked at the

  camp.

  “Does Lady Yanina care to partake?” asked one of the men.

  “Not now, not now,” she said.

  The men sat about the table, reaching into the sack, pulling out the flagon of

  wine, the goblets, the viands. One of them kicked aside some chains under the

  table, lying in the vicinity of a stout ring in the floor. The men of

  Torvaldsland sometimes chain naked bond-maids in such a place.

  “I think there is at least one thing more,” I said.

  “What is that?” she asked.

  “May I inspect Lady Yanina?” I asked.

  “Inspect me?” she asked.

  “Yes,” I said. “Bosk is not a fool. He may be dismayed, or become suspicious, if

  he detects even the least inaccuracy or imperfection in your disguise.”

  “Turn away,” she said to her men.

  They did so.

  “Look,” she said to me, opening her robe. her body, now clad in slave silk, was

  incredibly lovely. She would doubtless, as I had earlier thought, bring a high

  price in a slave market.

  “It is as I feared,” I said.

  “What is wrong?” she asked.

  “You have a lining beneath the silk,” I said.

  “Of course!” she said.

  “Remove it,” I said.

  “Brinlar!” she protested.

  “Do you think a master would be likely to permit such a thing to a slave?” I

  asked.

  “But I am not a slave,” she said. “I am a free woman!”

  “But supposedly you are brining bosk here, to serve him as a slave,” I said.

  She looked at me.

  “Do you think he would not note so glaring a discrepancy in your costume?” I

  asked.

  “Look away,” she said.

  page 110

  I saw the wine slosh from the flagon I had brought into the goblets of the men.
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  “You may now look again,” she said.

  “Ah!” I said.

  “I am more naked than naked,” she said.

  “Mistress is quite beautiful,” I said. There was no doubt about that slave

  market price.

  “It must be somewhere near the eighteenth Ahn,” I said. “I think it is time for

  Mistress to go to the alcove.” I turned her about and conducted her to the

  alcove. “Lie down there,” I said, pointing to the furs. She did so. She looked

  well at my feet.

  “Doubtless Mistress has arranged a signal wit her men,” I said.

  “It is quite simple,” she said. “I shall merely cry out. They will then rush

  forward and seize Bosk of Port Kar. In moments, then, he will be stripped and in

  chains, my helpless prisoner.”

  “I see,” I said.

  “Do you think he will come?” she asked.

  “Be assured of it.” I said. “He will be here.”

  “But perhaps he will be suspicious,” she said.

  “Have no fear,” I said. “He trusts me. He trusts me like I trust myself.”

  “What are you doing?” she asked, trying to draw back. I had taken her left ankle

  in my left hand. It was helpless in my grip.

  “Completing your disguise,” I said. I took the ankle ring, heavier than was

  necessary for a female, from the side of the alcove, on its chain, and, with my

  right hand, clasped it, locking it, about her left ankle.

  She jerked at it. “I am chained!” she said.

  “Yes,” I said.

  “Where is the key?” she asked.

  “Just outside, on its hook,” I said. I had made this determination earlier in

  the day, in scouting the inn, before she and her men had arrived.

  “Can I reach it from where I am?” she asked.

  “In no way,” I said.

  She looked at me, frightened.

  “Do not be afraid,” I said. “Your men are just outside.”

  “Yes,” she said. “Yes.” she examined the ring and the chain, her hands on the

  chain, frightened, fascinated. She looked up at me. “I’m chained,” she said,

  “truly chained.”

  “Your men are just outside,” I reminded her.

  “Yes,” she said.

  page 111

  “Is this how you intend to receive Bosk of Port Kar?” I asked.