by John Norman
But this time, in that room rich with hangings, with lamps set behind ornate mesh in the ceiling, there was a prisoner.
It was a strikingly, but cruelly beautiful girl, who walked from one end of the room to the other, in fury, like a young, caged she-larl. The hood to her ornate, marvelous robes of concealment had been taken from her; and her veil. Otherwise, given the splendor of her robes, she might have been on the highest bridges the envy of all the free women of Ar.
"Behold the downfall of the House of Portus," said Cernus.
I looked into the room. The girl had black hair, swirling and long, beautiful, which had never been cut, and flashing black eyes, high cheekbones.
On each small wrist, locked, she wore a slave bracelet, of simple, unadorned steel. The two bracelets were joined by a light, gleaming chain of perhaps a yard in length. It did not restrict her movements to any appreciable extent.
"I want her," said Cernus, "to feel steel on her wrists, the weight of a chain."
The girl spun about and threw her head back, staring wildly at the ceiling, throwing the chain back over her head. Then she sobbed in rage and flung the chain forward, striking it on the chests, on the divan, again and again. Then crouching over, with first one hand and then the other, she tried madly to push and slip the encircling, resisting steel over her other hand. She ran even to the bath and took oils, rubbing them on her wrists, but still the steel would not release her. Then she sobbed and ran back to the center of the room, striking again and again the divan with the chain. Then, still chained, she knelt on the divan, pounding it with her fists.
I heard a movement near us. I turned and saw a female slave, in a rep-cloth kitchen tunic, stained with food, approaching, bearing a tray of fruit with a flask of wine, She was followed by a guard.
The slave knocked timidly on the door of the cell.
The girl sprang up from the divan, wiped oil from her wrists on a towel, threw back her hair, and stood regally in the center of the room. "Enter," she said.
The guard unlocked the door and the kitchen slave, deferentially, entered, her head down and placed the tray of fruit and wine on a small low table near the divan. She then, head down, began to back lightly away.
"Wait, Slave," ordered the girl.
The slave sank to her knees, head down.
"Where is your master?" demanded the chained girl.
"I do not know, Mistress," said the kitchen slave.
"Who is your master?" demanded the chained girl.
"I am not permitted to say, Mistress," whined the kitchen slave.
The girl in chains strode to her and seized her by the collar, at which point the kitchen slave began to whine and weep, trying to draw back, to turn her head away. The chained girl, half crouching, scrutinized the collar and laughed, and then, with disdain, her hands in the slave's collar, flung her to one side, where the slave lay, fearing to rise. The chained girl kicked her savagely in the side with her slipper. "Begone, Slave," she snarled, and the kitchen slave leaped to her feet and sped through the door, which was closed behind her and locked by the guard.
Outside Cernus gestured for the kitchen slave not to leave. Immediately the kitchen slave knelt in the hallway, not speaking. There were tears in her eyes.
Cernus then drew my attention again to the interior of the cell.
The prisoner now seemed in a better mood. There was a new haughtiness in her movements. She looked down at the tray of fruit and wine and laughed, and picked up a fruit and bit into it, smiling.
"I have plans for this girl," said Cernus, regarding the prisoner through the glass. "I had intended to have her used by a male slave before she leaves the house, but I shall not do so. This afternoon, following her capture, I sent uncollared serving slaves to groom and bathe her. I observed her, and she interests me. I shall, therefore, before she leaves the house, use her myself, but she will not know who it is whom she serves, for when I visit her from time to time she will be locked in a slave hood."
"What do you intend eventually to do with her?" I asked.
"Her hair is very beautiful, is it not?" asked Cernus.
"Yes," I said, "it is."
"I expect she is quite vain about it," speculated Cernus.
"Doubtless," I said.
"I will have her hair shaved off," said Cernus, "and have her bound and hooded and sent by tarn to another city, Tor perhaps, where she will be publicly sold."
"Perhaps her sale could be private?" I said.
"No," said Cernus, "it must be public."
"What has all this to do with the House of Portus?" I asked.
Cernus laughed. "You, Killer," said he, "would not make a Player."
I shrugged.
"This girl," said he, "will in time make her way back to Ar. I will arrange it, if necessary."
"I do not understand," I said.
Cernus gestured for the kitchen slave to approach, and she did so immediately.
"Look at her collar," said Cernus.
I read the collar aloud. "I am the property of the House of Portus."
"She will find her way back to Ar," said Cernus. "And it will be the downfall of the House of Portus."
I looked at him.
"She is, of course," said Cernus, "Claudia Tentia Hinrabia."
15 — PORTUS COMES TO THE HOUSE OF CERNUS
I observed Phyllis Robertson performing the belt dance, on love furs spread between the tables, under the eyes of the Warriors of Cernus and the members of his staff. Beside me Ho-Tu was shoveling porridge into his mouth with a horn spoon. The music was wild, a melody of the delta of the Vosk. The belt dance is a dance developed and made famous by Port Kar dancing girls. Cernus, as usual, was engaged in a game with Caprus, and had eyes only for the board.
As the weeks had wore on, becoming months, I had grown more and more apprehensive and impatient. More than once I had called on Caprus myself, though it was perhaps not wise, to urge him to speed in his work, or to permit me to transmit portions of the documents he was copying to the Sardar. Always he refused. I had been bitter at these delays, complaining and chafing, but there seemed little I could do. He would not inform me of the location of the maps and papers and I did not feel that any direct attempt to steal them and carry them away would be likely to be successful; further, if simply stolen, the Others, through Cernus, would doubtless be informed at the first opportunity and alternate plans put into effect. I reminded myself, again and again, as the month clock rotated, that Caprus was a trusted agent of Priest-Kings, that Misk himself had spoken in the highest terms of him. I must trust Caprus. I would trust him. Yet I could not help my anger.
Ho-Tu pointed with his spoon at Phyllis. "She is not bad," he said.
The belt dance is performed with a Warrior. She now writhed on the furs at his feet, moving as though being struck with a whip. A white silken cord had been knotted about her waist; in this cord was thrust a narrow rectangle of white silk, perhaps about two feet long. About her throat, close-fitting and snug, there was a white-enameled collar, a lock collar. She no longer wore the band of steel on her left ankle.
"Excellent," said Ho-Tu, putting aside his spoon.
Phyllis Robertson now lay on her back, and then her side, and then turned and rolled, drawing up her legs, putting her hands before her face, as though fending blows, her face a mask of pain, of fear.
The music became more wild.
The dance receives its name from the fact that the girl's head is not supposed to rise above the Warrior's belt, but only purists concern themselves with such niceties; wherever the dance is performed, however, it is imperative that the girl never rise to her feet.
The music now became a moan of surrender, and the girl was on her knees, her head down, her hands on the ankle of the Warrior, his sandal lost in the unbound darkness of her hair, her lips to his foot.
"Sura is doing a good job with her," said Ho-Tu.
I agreed.
In the next phases of the dance the girl knows herself t
he Warrior's, and endeavors to please him, but he is difficult to move, and her efforts, with the music become ever more frenzied and desperate.
A girl in a tunic of white silk, gracefully, carrying a large pitcher of diluted Ka-la-na wine, approached out table from the rear, and climbed the stairs, delicately, and as though timidly, head down. Then she leaned forward behind me, bending her knees slightly, her body graceful. Her voice in my ear was a whisper, an invitation. I looked at her. Her eyes met mine, beautiful, deep, gray. Her lips were slightly parted. "Wine, Master?" asked Virginia Kent.
"Yes," I said, "I will have wine."
Virginia served me, bowed her head and backed gracefully down the stairs behind me, then turned and hurried away.
"She is White Silk, of course," said Ho-Tu.
"I know," I said.
Another girl approached similarly, though she was attired in a tunic of red silk.
"Wine, Master?" asked Elizabeth Cardwell.
"Again," snapped Ho-Tu, angrily.
Flustered, Elizabeth retreated and again approached. It was only on the third time that she managed to satisfy Ho-Tu, when her eyes, her lips, the carriage of her body, the words she whispered seemed to him adequate. "That is a stupid one," said Ho-Tu. Elizabeth, angry, backed down the stairs and hurried away.
I glanced at Virginia Kent, who was now moving about the tables, in the incredibly brief silken slave livery, the pitcher on her left shoulder, held there gracefully with her left hand. Her hair was now about three inches longer than it had been when she had come to the House of Cernus. She walked gracefully, insolently, the movement of her firing my blood. Her ankles were slender, beautiful. The left, as was the case with Phyllis, was now no longer encircled with the steel band, the identification band. About her throat, however, as was the case with Phyllis also, there was now a lock collar, snugly fitting, white-enameled. Both girls, branded and collared, were well marked as slave.
The belt dance was now moving to its climax and I turned to watch Phyllis Robertson.
"Capture of Home Stone," I heard Cernus say to Caprus, who spread his hands helplessly, acknowledging defeat.
Under the torchlight Phyllis Robertson was now on her knees, the Warrior at her side, holding her behind the small of the back. Her head went farther back, as her hands moved on the arms of the Warrior, as though once to press him away, and then again to draw him closer, and her head then touched the furs, her body a cruel, helpless bow in his hands, and then, her head down, it seemed she struggled and her body straightened itself until she lay, save for her head and heels, on his hands clasped behind her back, her arms extended over her head to the fur behind her. At this point, with a clash of cymbals, both dancers remained immobile. Then, after this instant of silence under the torches, the music struck the final note, with a might and jarring clash of cymbals, and the Warrior had lowered her to the furs and her lips, arms about his neck, sought his with eagerness. Then, both dancers broke and the male stepped back, and Phyllis now stood, alone on the furs, sweating, breathing deeply, head down.
I noted Sura standing somewhat behind the tables. She would not eat with the staff, of course, for she was slave. I did not know how long she had been standing there.
Cernus had watched the ending of the dance, his game having been finished. He glanced to Ho-Tu, who nodded affirmatively to him.
"Give her a pastry," said Cernus.
One of the men at the table threw a pastry to Phyllis, which she caught. She stood there for an instant, the pastry clutched in her hands, her eyes suddenly brimming with tears, then she turned and fled from the room.
Ho-Tu turned to Sura. "She is coming along nicely," he said.
Sura tossed her head. "Tomorrow," said she, "we will work on it further," and turned and left.
I took a deep drink of the diluted Ka-la-na wine I had been served.
In the past months I had spent my time variously. During the season of the races I had often attended them, and, on several occasions, had met the small Tarn Keeper Mip afterwards, with whom I had occasionally sat table. Several times we had taken racing tarns from the cot. He had even showed me, at night in the empty Stadium of Tarns, certain tricks of racing, about which he seemed to know a great deal, doubtless because of his connection with the Greens. I learned such things as the pacing of the bird, the model trajectories from negotiating the rings, techniques of avoiding birds and blocking others, sometimes forcing them to hit or miss the rings; racing could be, and often was, as dangerous and cruel as the games in the Stadium of Blades, where men met men and beasts, and often fought to the death.
Sometimes in the races, in pressing through the rings, fighting for position, riders used goads on one another, or tried to cut the safety or girth straps of others; more than one man had been stabbed as the birds, jammed at the corner rings, had fought for passage and position. Also, I had sometimes called at the Capacian Baths, even after the races were finished, seeing if Nela was available at that hour. I had come to be fond of the sturdy little swimmer, and I think she of me. Also, the girl seemed to know everything transpired in Ar. The games in the Stadium of Blades finished their season at the end of Se'Kara, a month following the season of races. I attended the games only once, and found that I did not much care for them. To the credit of the men of Ar I point out that the races were more closely followed.
I do not choose to describe the nature of the games, except in certain general detail. There seems to me little of beauty in them and much of blood. Matches are arranged between single armed fighters, or teams of such. Generally Warriors do not participate in these matches, but men of low caste, slaves, condemned criminals and such. Some of them, however, are quite skillful with the weapons of their choice, surely the equal of many Warriors.
The crowd is fond of seeing various types of weapons used against others, and styles of fighting. Buckler and short sword are perhaps most popular, but there are few weapons on Gor which are not seen over a period of three or four days of the games. Another popular set of weapons, as in the ancient ludi of Rome, is the net and trident. Usually those most skilled with this set of weapons are from the shore and islands of distant, gleaming Thassa, the sea, where they doubtless originally developed among fisherman.
Sometimes men fight locked in iron hoods, unable to see their opponents. Sometimes men wrestle to the death or use the spiked gauntlets. Sometimes slave girls were forced to fight slave girls, perhaps with steel claws fastened on their fingers, or several girls, variously armed, will be forced to fight a single man, or a small number of men. Surviving girls, of course, become the property of those whom they have fought; men who lose are, of course, slain.
Beasts are also popular in the Stadium of Blades, and fights between various animals, half starved and goaded into fury by hot irons and whips, are common; sometimes the beasts fight beasts of the same species, and other times not; sometimes the beasts fight men, variously armed, or armed slave girls; sometimes, for the sport of the crowd, slaves or criminals are fed to the beasts. The training of slaves and criminals for these fights, and the acquisition and training of the beasts is a large business in Ar, there being training schools for men, and compounds where the beasts, captured on expeditions to various parts of Gor and shipped to Ar, may be kept and taught to kill under the unnatural conditions of the stadium spectacle.
Upon occasion, and it had happened early in Se'Kara this year, the arena is flooded and a sea fight is staged, the waters for the occasion being filled with a variety of unpleasant sea life, water tharlarion, Vosk turtles, and the nine-gilled Gorean shark, the latter brought in tanks on river barges up the Vosk, to be then transported in tanks on wagons across the margin of desolation to Ar for the event.
Both the games and the races are popular in Ar, but, as I have indicated, the average man of Ar follows the races much more closely. There are no factions, it might be mentioned, at the games. Further, as might be expected, those who favor the games do not much go to the races, and those who
favor the races do not often appear at the games. The adherents of each entertainment, though perhaps equaling one another in their fanaticism, tend not to be the same men.
The one time I did attend the games I suppose I was fortunate in seeing Murmillius fight. He was an extremely large man and a truly unusual and superb swordsman. Murmillius always fought alone, never in teams, and in more than one hundred and fifteen fights, sometimes fighting three and four times in one afternoon, he had never lost a contest. It was not known if he had been originally slave or not, but had he been he surely would have won his freedom ten times over and more; again and again, even after he would have won his freedom had he first been slave, he returned to the sand of the arena, steel in hand; I supposed it might be the gold of victory, or the plaudits of the screaming crowd that brought Murmillius ever again striding helmeted in the sunlight onto the white sand.
Yet Murmillius was an enigma in Ar, and little seemed to be known of him. He was strange to the minds of those who watched the games.
For one thing he never slew an opponent, though the man often could never fight again; the afternoon I had seen him the crowd cried for the death of his defeated opponent, lying bloodied in the sand, pleading for mercy between his legs, and Murmillius had lifted his sword as though to slay the man, and the crowd screamed, and then Murmillius threw back his head and laughed, and slammed the sword into its sheath and strode from the arena; the crowd had been stunned and then furious, but by the time Murmillius had turned before the iron gate to face them they were on their feet crying his name, cheering him wildly, for he had spurned them; the will of the vast multitude in that huge stadium had been nothing to him, and the crowd, their will rejected, roared his praises, adoring him; and he turned and strode into the darkness of the pits beneath the stadium; even the face of Murmillius was unknown for never, even when the crowd cried out the loudest, would he remove the great helmet with its curving steel crest that concealed his features; Murmillius, at least until he himself should lie red in the white sand, held the adherents of the games in Ar, and perhaps the city itself, in the gauntleted palm of his right hand, his sword hand.