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

Norman, John - Gor 20 - Players of Gor.txt Page 32

by Players of Gor [lit]

  “Since dawn, yesterday,” she said, “when I, only a lowly slave, and the other

  woman, she noble and free, were fed in the brigand’s camp.”

  “You are probably hungry, then,” said Boots.

  “Yes, Master,” she said.

  “Do you beg on your belly?” inquired Boots.

  “Yes, Master,” she said, putting her bound wrists forward and lowering herself

  to her belly. She lifted her head. It was at Boots’s knee.

  “Speak,” said Boots.

  “I beg food,” she said.

  “Speak more clearly,” said Boots.

  “Lady Telitsia begs for at the hands of her master,” she aid.

  “Turn to your side,” said Boots.

  She then lay on her left side. Boots then, delicately, carefully, bit by bit, by

  hand, fed her. After a time he let her kneel near him and then he continued, but

  by bit, little by little, to feed her from his hand. She looked up at him, from

  the palm of his hand, which she had been licking. She looked up at him in

  gratitude. It was on him that her food depended. Boots then piled a plate with

  food and put it down before her. “Head down,” he cautioned her. “Do not use your

  hands.” She then put her head down and ate from the plate, not touching it with

  her hands. Finally she was even licking at the plate. She, like the free woman,

  the Lady Yanina, had be ravenous. Boots then took the plate from her. “Kneel

  here,” he said. She knelt immediately, obediently, where he had indicated,

  facing him. “Thank you, Master,” she said, “for feeding me.”

  page 223

  “What do you think?” asked Boots.

  “A pretty slave,” I said.

  “Thank you, Master,” she whispered, trembling.

  From her reaction I conjectured she was a virgin.

  “On your back!” said Boots. “Put your hands over your head! Throw your legs

  apart, widely!”

  “What do you think?” asked Boots.

  “She is clumsy,” I said, “but she is prompt and earnest.”

  “I cannot even use her in a girl tent now,” said Boots, gloomily. “They would

  demand their money back. She is desperately in need of training.”

  “I think she will learn quickly,” I said.

  “She will, or she will be regularly lashed,” said Boots.

  “You will prove to be an apt pupil, will you not, Lady Telitsia?” I asked.

  “I will struggle to learn!” she said, “I will try to do my best to please my

  Masters!”

  “You will prove to be an apt pupil, will you not, Lady Telitsia?” I repeated.

  “Yes, Master!” she said.

  “Kneel,” said Boots.

  Swiftly she scrambled to her knees.

  Boots regarded her. “I suppose you will prove to be troublesome,” he mused,

  grimly.

  “No, Master!” she said.

  “Or you will fail to be fully pleasing, and it will be necessary to sell you for

  sleen feed,” he said.

  “No, Master!” she said.

  “You have dared beg for food,” he said. “You grow bold. Doubtless next you will

  wish a scrap of blanket for the girl wagon, or next even, outrageous effrontery,

  a brief rag to conceal some bits of your beauty, at least provisionally, from

  the eyes of men.”

  “Let it be down with me as my Master desires,” she said. “I am his slave.”

  “The slave’s response seems suitable,” I said.

  “Perhaps,” admitted Boots, grudgingly. “Lift your wrists,” he said to the girl.

  She did so, putting her head down, between her then-lifted arms. Boots removed

  the thongs from her wrists. “Put your hands on your thighs,” he said. He then

  regarded her, kneeling naked, frightened, before him, her hands on her thighs.

  Her knees were press3ed closely together. This is a natural, defensive posture

  in a new female slave.

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  “Perhaps later,” said Boots, “when you have had more training, I will permit you

  to knee with your knees wide.”

  “Yes, Master,” she said.

  “Are you not grateful?” inquired Boots.

  “Yes, Master,” said the girl, “Thank you, Master.”

  “Now seek out Rowena, the blond slave,” said Boots. “I am using her now as first

  girl in the camp. She will put you about your duties.”

  “Yes, Master,” said the girl, rising.

  “Slave,” said Boots.

  “Yes, Master?” said the girl, turning, and dropping again to her knees,

  addressed by a free man.

  “On second thought,” said Boots, “go to my wagon, there. Enter it. Inside,

  facing the front of the wagon, kneel down, putting your head to the floor. I

  think I will begin your training.”

  “Yes, Master,” she said, frightened, and leaped up, hurrying to his wagon, to

  obey.

  “It seems we will not be leaving this camping area today,” I said.

  “Tomorrow will be soon enough,” said Boots. He then rose to his feet, belched,

  spit on his hands, wiped them on his tunic, and stalked slowly, ponderously,

  like a good-natured, rotund, draft tharlarion, perhaps having eaten too much,

  toward his wagon.

  In a moment or two I, too, had left the gray, smoldering ashes of the breakfast

  fire behind me. I then found myself at my own wagon. I climbed the stairs,

  taking no care to conceal my approach. I noisily removed the padlock from the

  door, and let it fall back against the side of the door, suspended on its short

  chain. I would wait a long moment before I opened the door. Within, inside the

  wagon, the Lady Yanina would be kneeling. Next she would obey.

  page 225

  11 The Lady Yanina Is Included in the Act

  “You cannot do this to me!” cried the Lady Yanina.

  “Behold,” called Boots meaningfully to the crowd, “not a slave, but a free

  woman!”

  “Stop!” cried the Lady Yanina. “I am free! Save me! Someone save me!”

  “Should we attempt to rescue her?” asked one stout youth of another.

  “Do not be silly,” said his fellow. “It is all part of the act.”

  “Of course,” agreed the first. “How stupid of me to fear otherwise.”

  “Help!” shrieked the Lady Yanina.

  I now fastened Lady Yanina’s left wrist in its place on the colorful red,

  trimmed-in-yellow, backboard. I had already buckled her right wrist in place.

  “Gather around, good friends, good people,” Boots encouraged the crowd. “Look

  closely upon her. Examine her!”

  The crowd, thus encouraged, pressed in about us.

  “See her throat,” cried Boots. “It is innocent of the collar! See her thighs! No

  brand is upon them!”

  The crowd pressed closely about, some of the men skeptically, roughly, examining

  Lady Yanina for slave marks. Certainly her costume, incredibly brief and />
  brightly spangled, bared most of the common brand sites utilized by Gorean

  slavers in marketing women.

  page 226

  “Help!” cried the Lady Yanina. “Help!”

  “You are doing very well,” I congratulated her.

  “I am not acting!” she cried. “Help! Help!”

  One of the men pulled the top edge of her lower garment out and down a bit from

  her body, peering within. “What are you doing?” she cried.

  “She is not branded on the lower left abdomen,” he informed the crowd.

  I desisted from buckling her right ankle in its place on the backboard while a

  fellow checked the backs of her legs. She cried out in misery. “There is nothing

  here,” said the fellow. I then fastened her ankle in place.

  “Oh!” she cried. The fellow who had checked her lower left abdomen was now

  expanding his explorations to check her buttocks. “Stop!” she cried.

  “There are no brands here,” he said.

  “Interesting,” said a man.

  Another fellow was thrusting up the fringe dangling from the narrow, twisted

  strip of cloth, covered with sequins, which was bound about her breasts, this

  serving to conceal her nipples.

  “Take your hands off me!” she cried.

  “There is nothing here,” said the fellow.

  With difficulty I caught her left ankle and buckled it, too, in its place,

  against the colorful backboard.

  “Stop!” she cried. “Stop!”

  “Nothing here,” said the fellow, pushing back her head against the backboard.

  She was not branded either on the left side of the neck, behind and below the

  left ear.

  “As you can see, Ladies and Gentlemen,” said Boots, “on her lovely throat she

  does not wear the light collar of inflexible steel, that beautiful circlet

  proclamatory of absolute bondage. Similarly her beauty has not, as yet at least,

  as you can see, been graced by the imprinting upon it of some delicate emblem

  indicative of the status of property, some device recollective of the

  unmistakable, transforming kiss of the blazing iron! As advertised, as

  proclaimed, as announced earlier, she is a free female!”

  “She cannot be a free female,” said a man. “Otherwise she would not be used in

  this fashion.”

  “Come now,” said Boots. “Surely you have all known free women whom you would

  have enjoyed treating in this fashion.”

  There was a great deal of laughter. One of the free women in the audience struck

  the fellow next to her with her elbow.

  page 227

  “Take your hands off me!” cried the Lady Yanina to one of the men standing near

  her, a fellow who had perhaps decided to resume the discontinued investigations

  of his peers. She then, to the horror of the crowd, spit virulently in his face.

  “Sleen! Sleen!” she cried at him. Then she turned her head to the crowd.

  “Sleen!” she screamed. “You are all sleen!” She spit out at the crowd, twice.

  Then she stood there in the straps, helpless, sobbing. The crowd observed her,

  in stunned silence.

  “As you can see,” said Boots, swiftly, enthusiastically, thinking like

  lightning, “she is, as advertised, as certified, a free woman! What more proof

  could you possible desire? What salve would dare to behave so?” It was an

  excellent point which Boots was making. No slave would be likely to behave in a

  fashion like that, or at least more than once. Such a behavior would be likely

  to be followed by hideous punishments, if not death by torture. How should I put

  this delicately? Perhaps, thusly: Insubordination in any form, of any sort, in

  even the tiniest, least significant degree, is not accepted from slave girls by

  their Gorean masters.

  Suddenly, as it had become clear what had occurred, the crowd began to turn

  ugly. “Give her to us!” called a man. “Let us buy her!” called another. “We will

  take up a collection!” cried another, looking about himself. “Yes!” said a man.

  “Yes!” cried another. “I want her!” called a man. “She can pull my plow!” “We

  will brand her and put her in a collar quickly enough!” cried another. “Sell her

  to us!” called another. “If he will not sell her, let us seize her by force!”

  cried another.

  “Gentlemen, gentlemen, ladies!” called out Boots, jovially. “Let us remain calm.

  No harm has been done. Let us get on with the show. Step back, step back,

  please.”

  Grudgingly the crowd stepped back a bit, clearing a half circle around the

  heavy, braced, upright structure of painted planks. I regarded the Lady Yanina.

  She was now trembling, terrified, in the straps. There were certainly enough

  fellows in the crowd, if they became unruly, to take her away from us. Also, of

  course, Boots would never have approved of vigorous altercations with paying

  customers, and certainly would have frowned upon slaying them, even a few of

  them. That sort of thing is not good for business.

  Boots motioned me forward. I approached, the multiple sheath of saddle knives at

  my left hip.

  “May I present Tarl, he of the Plains of Turia, he of the Lands of the Wagon

  Peoples, master of the mystic quivas, the famed saddle knives of the southern

  barbarians, come to us at

  page 228

  great expense and in spite of many perils by special arrangement with Kimchak,

  Ubar San of the Wagon Peoples!”

  “That’s Kamchak,” I said. I thought I owed at least that much to my old buddy of

  the south. I supposed that if Kamchak had known his name was being used in this

  fashion, and mispronounced at that, and Boots was within his grasp he might

  have, as a joke, for Kamchak was fond of jokes, had Boots put in a sack and put

  out in front of the bosk, curious to see if they would move in that direction

  on that particular morning. On the other hand, perhaps he would only have

  challenged him to a spitting contest or one in which the number of seeds in

  different sorts of tospits were guessed and then, if Boots lost, put him out

  with the bosk, to see what way they might move that day.

  “Is it true,” asked Boots, “that you never miss?”

  “Well, actually no,” I admitted.

  “What!” cried Boots, in horror.

  “You must understand,” I said, “that I have no intention of hitting her. She is,

  after all, a free woman.”

  The Lady Yanina regarded me, wildly. “I thought you were an expert!” she cried.

  “I have never done this before,” I admitted.

  “Good,” said a man. I am not sure, but I think he was the one she had spit upon.

  He, at any rate, did not appear pleasantly disposed towards her.

  The Lady Yanina regarded me with horror.

  “Never,” I admitted.

  She stood there, buckled in place, against the bright red, yellow-trimmed

  backboard. She then, suddenly, frenziedly, began to struggle. I did not much<
br />
  blame her. In the end, of course, she stood precisely as she had before. I had

  not buckled her in in such a way as to permit her to free herself. She was a

  lovely woman. The costume, too, set her off nicely. Her throat required only a

  collar. Her thigh required only a bran. She whimpered a bit, pulling at the

  straps. She knew herself absolutely helpless. It was important, of course, that

  she was a free woman for this bit of showmanship. Who in the crowd would have

  been that interested, or concerned, or thrilled with horror, to see a slave in

  such jeopardy? What sort of take would that have brought in? Not many coins, I

  feared, would be likely to rattle in the kettle on behalf of so unimaginative an

  offering. Also, of course, slaves generally have some value, at least to the

  master, even if not much. They, at least, can be bought and sold. Who would want

  to risk one in such a foolish manner? Free women, on the other

  page 229

  hand, being priceless, have for most practical purposes no value whatsoever.

  “Step back, please,” warned Boots, gravely. “Give him room.”

  A hush fell over the crowd.

  I took my position.

  “Let me ask your forgiveness in advance, lady,” I said, “should I possibly

  strike you.”

  “Why would you do that, in advance?” asked Boots.

  “It might be pointless afterwards,” I said.

  “That is true,” he granted me.

  Lady Yanina moaned. She tugged weakly at the straps. As she was fastened against

  the backboard, her wrists were drawn somewhat above her head and far to the

  sides. Similarly her legs were widely spread. If the board had been laid flat

  on the ground, the captive then on her back, the position, immediately, would

  have been recognized as a common binding position, one which girls are not

  unoften put for slave use.

  “Be quiet,” Boots warned the crowd. “We must have absolute quiet.”

  Some fellow sneezed. I think it was the fellow she had spit upon.

  “Please!” begged Boots.

  “I have something in my eye,” I said.

  “Are you al right?” asked Boots.

  “Yes,” I said. “I am all right now.”

  “Is it true that you sometimes miss?’ asked Boots, anxiously.

  “Sometimes,” I admitted.

 

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