Players of Gor

by Norman, John;

  Her eyes were glazed. Her hair was down before her face. She pulled at the chains, weakly.

  “But perhaps you are not interested in the lore of Torvaldsland,” I said.

  “What you did to me,” she said.

  “Perhaps you are hungry,” I said.

  She looked at me, angrily. She moved her head to the side, trying to free her face of hair. I took her hair and, arranging it, put it back over her shoulders. “You are quite beautiful in chains,” I said. “Perhaps you should be a slave.”

  She did not respond.

  “You look well chained under a table,” I said.

  “Thank you,” she said, angrily.

  I took a piece of meat from the table, one of the viands I had brought from the camp, a small tidbit of roast tarsk.

  I held it out to her.

  “No,” she said.

  “Eat,” I said.

  Her wrists pulled upward, against the wrist rings, but her hands, chained as they were, could lift but a few inches from the floor. “I cannot reach it,” she said.

  “I am not a patient man,” I said.

  “I am a free woman!” she said.

  “I am well aware of that,” I said. “If you were a slave, you would probably have received at least two beatings by now.”

  She extended her head.

  “Excellent, Lady Yanina,” I said. “You take food well on your knees, from a man’s hand.”

  The next few pieces of meat I scattered on the tiles. She must take them without touching them with her hands. While she was doing this I disarmed the guards, slinging their weapons about my shoulder.

  I then came back to regard the Lady Yanina.

  “Have you finished the meat, Lady Yanina?” I inquired.

  “Yes!” she said.

  I picked up the things, lying to one side, which I had taken from the farther alcove. Her eyes suddenly widened, and she regarded me with terror.

  “This key,” I said, “I found concealed in your robes. It is, I assume, the key to one of the chests, which contains, doubtless, the keys to certain other chests, and perhaps other keys, as well, such as those pertinent to the shackles of your work chain. If it does not, of course, I may have to make use of certain tools in your camp.”

  She began to tremble in the chains.

  “Among your belongings,” I said, “there are also doubtless other things of interest, such as rings, and moneys, and such, pilfered from your captives. I alone am missing a considerable wallet. Too, I think I may count on your having independent stores of coins and notes, and, given your apparent wealth and elegance, a suitable measure of costly cloths, gems and jewelries. These materials I shall distribute among the members of the work chain, to compensate them somewhat for their inconvenience and loss of time. These weapons I carry, too, save for those I reserve for my own use, I shall give to skillful, worthy fellows. We shall then, still free men, make our way to the fair. At the fair, as you know, fighting, enslavement, foul play, and such, are not permitted. After some days of sport and recreation at the fair, we may then, if we wish, from the fairgrounds themselves, take tarns to Port Kar, an expensive proposition to be sure, but one which your resources will doubtless prove sufficient to fund. If you see a light in the sky later, it may be your camp burning.”

  “Do what you wish,” she pleaded, in her chains. “Free the men, take the gold, burn the camp, but do not touch that packet!”

  “Oh, yes, this,” I said, lifting the leather packet which I had taken from the farther alcove. “This contains the materials, doubtless, which you were to deliver to your dear friend, Flaminius.”

  “Leave it!” she said.

  “Why?” I asked.

  “I am a courier,” she said. “I must deliver that to Flaminius!”

  “I gather that that will be difficult for you to do,” I said, “chained as you are.”

  “Please,” she said. “Do not even think of taking that! Leave it! I beg you! I beg you!”

  “It must be very important,” I said.

  “No,” she said, quickly, moving in the chains, drawing back. “No. No.”

  “Then its loss will be negligible,” I said.

  “The materials will be meaningless to you!” she cried. “They will mean nothing to you!”

  “Where are they from?” I asked.

  “From Brundisium,” she said.

  “Who are they from?” I asked.

  “From Belnar, my Ubar,” she said. I assumed that was a lie. Presumably there was no Belnar who was a Ubar in Brundisium. Still, I did recall that she had referred to a “Belnar” at yesterday’s rendezvous with Flaminius.

  “And you were to deliver them to Flaminius?” I asked.

  “Yes,” she said. “Yes!”

  “And what is he supposed to do with them?” I asked.

  “He is to deliver them to the appropriate parties in Ar,” she said.

  “In Ar?” I asked.

  “Yes,” she said.

  That surprised me. I wondered if she knew the true destination of the materials. I assumed they must actually be transmissions to the Sardar. Presumably it was merely her intention to mislead me.

  “They are state papers,” she said. “They must not fall into the wrong hands!” I assumed they were not state papers, of course. On the other hand, I was prepared to believe that they had their origin in Brundisium, and that there was some fellow named Belnar associated with them. He would be, I supposed, an agent of Priest-Kings. I was curious. I considered waiting for Flaminius and his men. Yet I had no special wish to kill them, and particularly if they were agents of Priest-Kings. I had already killed one fellow who, I took it, was an agent of Priest-Kings, the fellow, Babinius, in Port Kar. I had once served Priest-Kings. I did not wish now, whatever might be their current attitudes toward me, to make a practice of dropping their agents. To be sure, I did not know for certain that this Belnar, and Flaminius, the Lady Yanina, and those associated with them were agents of Kurii.

  “Do you serve Priest-Kings?” I asked the Lady Yanina.

  “I do not understand,” she said.

  “Do you serve Beasts?” I asked.

  “I do not understand,” she said.

  “Whom do you serve?” I asked.

  “Belnar,” she said, “my ubar, Ubar of Brundisium.”

  “Why should this Belnar, whom I do not know, supposedly the Ubar of Brundisium, a city with which I have never had dealings, find me of such interest? Why should he send a killer against me, or desire my apprehension?”

  “I do not know,” she said.

  I smiled.

  “I do not!” she said.

  It could be, of course, that she, for all her beauty, was only a lowly counter in an intricate, complex game beyond her understanding. She might not even know, ultimately, whether she served Priest-Kings, or Kurii. That was an interesting thought.

  “I am going now,” I said.

  “Don’t go!” she cried.

  “On the other hand, I recommend that you remain where you are, waiting for Flaminius.”

  She shook the chains, in helpless frustration.

  “He will be along shortly,” I assured her.

  “Leave the packet!” she begged.

  “Do you beg it naked, on your knees, chained, as might a slave?” I asked.

  “Yes!” she cried. “I beg it on my knees, naked, in chains, as might a slave!”

  “Interesting,” I said.

  “Leave it,” she begged.

  “No,” I said.

  She looked at me, aghast.

  “But you did beg prettily,” I said, “and had the matter been otherwise, for example, had you been begging to serve my pleasure, I would truly have been tempted to give you a more favorable response.”

  “I am a free woman,” she said. “How can you, a free man, deny me anything I want?”

  “Easily,” I said.

  She looked at me, angrily.

  “Many free women believe they can have an
ything they want, merely by asking for it, or demanding it,” I said, “but now you see that that is not true, at least not in a world where there are true men.”

  Briefly the thought of another world crossed my mind, one frightened of true manhood, one at war with it, one concerned to inculcate political insanities, to redefine manhood, turning it into its opposite, a world intent on stunting, crippling, reducing, and destroying men, turning them into pliant, deluded, sexless nothings.

  The Lady Yanina, I saw, did not apprehend my allusion, but how could she, she a Gorean woman? To her such things would be incomprehensible, as incomprehensible as making a diet of gravel, or poison.

  She shook the chains in frustration. “You make me as helpless and dependent on you as a slave!” she cried.

  “Yes,” I said.

  “Wait!” she said.

  “Yes?” I said, turning.

  “What will they do with me?” she asked.

  “I do not know,” I said.

  “Belnar will not be pleased,” she said. “In Brundisium we do not look lightly on failure. At the least I shall be considerably reduced in rank. I will be denied the use of footwear. My pretty clothes will be taken away. I will be permitted only plain robes, and shortened so that my calves may be seen by men. I may even be forced to go publicly face-stripped. I may even be expelled from the palace. It could even mean the collar for me!”

  I wondered if she were truly of the household of the palace. If so, then perhaps this Belnar might be a resident of the palace. Perhaps he was an official or minister of some sort in the government of Brundisium. It did not seem to me likely that he would be the ubar of Brundisium. So important a personage as a ubar would not be likely to have much of an interest in a captain of Port Kar. On the other hand, I supposed it was possible. He might, I supposed, be both a ubar and an agent of Priest-Kings, or of Kurii. If he were indeed so prominent then it seemed to me more likely that he might serve Kurii than Priest-Kings. The Priest-Kings, at least on the whole, it seemed to me, seldom picked prominent, conspicuous personages for their agents. Samos had been in their service before he had become the first captain in the Council of Captains in Port Kar. Perhaps then Flaminius, and the Lady Yanina, and those associated with them, did serve Kurii.

  “I see then,” I said, “that you will have much to think about while awaiting the arrival of Flaminius.”

  “Flaminius!” she laughed bitterly. “Dear Flaminius! He will shed few tears, I assure you, over my plight!”

  “That would be my impression,” I said.

  “He will find my downfall amusing, relishing it,” she said.

  “Perhaps if your punishment is enslavement,” I said, “you might aspire to be one of his girls.”

  “Perhaps,” she said, bitterly.

  “He seems the sort of a man who would know how to make a woman crawl beneath his whip,” I said.

  “That, too, is my understanding,” she said. “Wait! Wait!”

  But I had then withdrawn from the inn of Ragnar. Then I was making my way back to her camp.

  6

  I Renew an Acquaintance;

  I Am Considering Venturing to Brundisium

  “Disgusting! Disgusting!” cried the free woman, one veiled and wearing the robes of the scribes, standing in the audience. “Pull down your skirt, you slave, you brazen hussy!”

  “Pray, do withdraw, noble sir, for you surprise me arriving as you did I all unawares, and of necessity I must improvise some veiling, lest my features be disclosed,” cried the girl upon the stage, Boots Tarsk-Bit’s current Brigella. I had seen her a few days earlier in Port Kar.

  “Pull down your skirt, slut!” cried the free woman in the audience.

  “Be quiet,” said a free man to the woman. “It is only a play.”

  “Be silent yourself!” she cried back at him.

  “Would that you were a slave,” he growled. “You would pay richly for your impertinence.”

  “I am not a slave,” she said.

  “Obviously,” he said.

  “And I shall never be a slave,” she said.

  “Do not be too sure of that,” he said.

  “Beast,” she said.

  “I wonder if you would be any good chained in a tent,” he said.

  “Monster!” she said.

  “Let us observe the drama,” suggested another fellow.

  “Though I be impoverished and am clad in rags, in naught but the meanness of tatters,” said the Brigella to Boots Tarsk-Bit, he on the stage with her, he in the guise of a pompous, puffing, lecherous merchant, “know, and know well, noble sir, that I am a free woman!”

  This announcement, predictably, was met with guffaws of laughter from the audience.

  “Take the scarf from about her throat!” hooted a man. “See if there is not a steel collar beneath it!” On Gor, as I have perhaps mentioned, most of the actresses are slaves. In serious drama or more sophisticated comedy, when women are permitted roles within it, the female roles usually being played by men, and the females are slaves, their collars are sometimes removed. Before this is done, however, usually a steel bracelet or anklet, locked, which they cannot remove, is placed on them. In this way, they continue, helplessly, to wear some token of bondage. This facilitates, in any possible dispute or uncertainty as to their status or condition, a clear determination in the matter, by anyone, of course, but in particular by guardsmen or magistrates, or otherwise duly authorized authorities.

  This custom tends to prevent inconvenience and possible embarrassment, for example, the binding of the woman and the remanding of her to the attention of free females, that she may be stripped and her body examined for the presence of slave marks. In such an event, incidentally, it behooves the girl to swiftly and openly confess her bondage. Free women despise slaves. They tend to treat them with great cruelty and viciousness in general, and, in particular, they are not likely to be pleasant with one who has been so bold as to commit the heinous crime of impersonating one of them. There is no difficulty in locating or recognizing the slave mark in a girl’s body. It, though small and tasteful, is prominent in her flesh. It is easily located, perfectly legible and totally unmistakable. It serves its identificatory purposes well. It, in effect, is part of her. It is in her hide.

  Normally when a girl plays upon the stage, even if she is nude, the brand is not covered. Usually, if she is playing the role of a free woman it is simply “not seen,” so to speak, being ignored by the audience, in virtue of a Gorean theatrical convention. If a great deal is being made of the freedom of the woman in the play, as is not unusual in many dramas and farces, the brand is sometimes covered, as with a small, circular adhesive patch. The removal of this patch, conjoined perhaps with a collaring, for example, may then suggest that the female has now been suitably enslaved. The covering of the brand, thereby suggesting that for the purposes of the play and the role it does not exist, or does not yet exist, is another Gorean theatrical convention.

  There are many such conventions. Carrying a tarn goad and moving about the stage in a certain manner suggests that one is riding a tarn; a kaiila crop, or kaiila goad, and a change of gait suggests that one is riding a kaiila; a branch on the stage can stand for a forest or a bit of a wall for a city; standing on a box or small table can suggest that the hero is viewing matters from the summit of a mountain or from battlements; some sprinkled confetti can evoke a snow storm; a walk about the stage may indicate a long journey, of thousands of pasangs; some crossed poles and a silken hanging can indicate a throne room or the tent of a general; a banner carried behind a “general” can indicate that he has a thousand men at his back; a black cloak indicates that the character is invisible, and so on.

  “Are you truly free?” inquired Boots Tarsk-Bit, with exaggerated incredulity, in the guise of the merchant, of his Brigella.

  “Yes!” she cried, holding her skirt up about her face, it clenched in her small fists, to veil herself with it. There was laughter then, doubtless not only at
the preposterousness of the situation but, too, at the incongruity of so obvious a slave, such a lovely Brigella, enunciating such a line.

  Boots puffed across the stage, as though to obtain a better vantage point.

  “Tal, noble sir,” she said.

  “Tal, noble lady,” said he.

  “Is there anything wrong?” she inquired.

  “I would say that there is very little wrong, if anything,” he said.

  “Have you never seen a free woman before?” she asked.

  “This farce is an insult to free women!” cried the free woman in the audience, she in the blue of the scribes.

  “Have you never seen a free woman before?” repeated the Brigella.

  “Generally I do not see so much of them,” Boots admitted, as the merchant.

  “I see,” said the Brigella.

  “Often not half so much,” said Boots.

  “Insulting!” cried the free woman.

  “But I expect I see more of you than most,” he said.

  “Insulting! Insulting!” cried the free woman.

  “Are you dismayed that I do not receive you properly?” asked the Brigella.

  “I should be pleased,” Boots assured her, “if it were your intention to receive me at all, either properly or improperly.”

  “What lady could do otherwise?” she inquired.

  “Indeed!” Boots cried enthusiastically.

  “I mean, of course,” she said, “that I apologize for having to veil myself so hastily, making such swift and resourceful use of whatever materials might be at hand.”

  “I fully understand,” he assured her.