more than one man. There was a striking of shoulders in Gorean applause. Even
some of the slave girls cried out with pleasure. The girl had done it well. Then
she was again dancing among the tables. her movements gave much pleasure. She
entertained well. If Samos had known she would prove this good he might have put
her in bells or a chain. I doubted that some of the things she had done, in all
their abundance and richness, had been merely thought up on the spur of the
moment. I suspected that many times in here dreams and fantasies she had danced
thus before men, as a slave. Then, lo, one night in Port Kar she found herself
truly a slave, and so dancing, and for her life.
As the music neared its climax she returned before our table, dancing
desperately and pleadingly. It was there that was to be found her master.
She lowered herself to the floor and there, on her knees, and her sides, and her
belly and back, continued her dance.
Men cried out with pleasure.
Floor movements are among the most stimulatory aspects of slave dance.
I regarded her. She was not bad. She was, of course, not trained. A connoisseur
of slave dance, I suppose, might have pointed out errors in the pointing of a
toe, the extension of a limb, the use of a hand, not well framing the body, not
subtly inviting the viewer’s eye inward, and so on, but, on the whole, she was
definitely not bad. Given her lack of training, a lack which could, of course,
be easily remedied, she was not bad, really. Much of what she did, I suppose, is
instinctual in a woman. Too, of course, she was dancing for her life.
She writhed well, an utterly helpless, begging slave.
Then the music was finished and she was before us, kneeling, her head down, in
submission to Samos. She lifted her head to regard Samos, her master. She
searched his face fearfully, for the least sign of her fate. It was he who would
decide whether she would live or die.
“It is my hope, Master,†she said, “that in time I might not prove totally
unacceptable as a slave.â€
“You may approach,†said Samos.
She did not dare to rise to her feet. She crawled, head down, on her hands and
knees, to the edge of the table. There, near the table, she put her head down
and kissed the tiles. Then, rising up a little and approaching further, still on
her hands and knees, she
page 28
turned her head, delicately, and kissed the edge of the table, her lips touching
partly the surface of the table, partly its side.
“Do you beg to live?†he asked.
“Yes, I beg to live, my Master,†she said.
“On what terms?†he asked.
“Your terms, Master,†she said, “only as a total slave.â€
“Kneel,†said Samos.
She knelt, back on her heels.
Some of the men of Samos had now gathered about, near the table.
“For the moment, at least,†said Samos, “you will not be thrown to sleen.â€
“Thank you, Master!†she cried. “Thank you, my Master!â€
Samos then nodded to one of the men standing about, the burly oarsman from whom
earlier, eluding him, she had danced away.
He took her wrists and tied them together, with her own hair, before her body,
leaving a length of the hair for a leading tether.
She looked up at the oarsman.
“See that you continue to prove adequate,†said Samos.
“yes, Master!†she said.
She was then drawn to her feet by the hair tether and, bound, was led across the
tiles to the oarsman’s place.
“Tula!†called a man. “Let Tula dance!â€
Several men shouted their agreement to this. A long-legged brunette was thrust
to the center of the tiles. She had high cheekbones, a tannish skin and a golden
collar. Her bit of silk was ripped from her.
“Tula!†cried men, and, sensuously, she lifted her arms, and standing,
excitingly posed, awaited the instruction of the music. She would show the men
what true dancing could be.
Across the room I saw she who had been Lady Rowena of Lydius, her arms, her
wrists still bound with her own hair, about the neck of the oarsman. His hands
were one her. Her lips were pressed fervently to his. He lowered her to the
tiles beside his table.
The music began and Tula danced. I saw other girls moving closer to the tables,
subtly taking more prominent positions, hoping perhaps thereby to be more
visible to the men. Tula was Samos’ finest dancer. There was much competition
among his girls for the second position. My own finest dancer was a wench named
Sandra. Some others, for example, Arlene, Janice, Evelyn, Mira and Vella, were
also quite good.
page 29
She who had been the former Lady Rowena of Lydius suddenly cried out.
“It is your move,†I told Samos.
“I know,†he said.
He moved his Ubara’s Rider of the High Tharlarion to Ubara’s Builder Three. This
seemed a weak move. It did open the Ubara’s Initiate’s Diagonal. My Ubar’s Rider
of the High Tharlarion was amply protected. I utilized the initial three-space
option of the Ubar’s Scribe’s Spearman. I would then, later, bring the Ubar’s
Builder to Ubar’s Scribe One, to bring pressure to bear on the Ubar’s Scribe’s
file. Samos did not seem to be playing his usual game. His opening, in
particular, had been erratic. he had prematurely advanced significant pieces,
and then had lost time in withdrawing them. It was as though he had desired to
take some significant action, or had felt that he should, but had been unwilling
to do so.
He moved a spearman, diffidently.
“That seems a weak move,†I said.
He shrugged.
I brought the Ubar’s Builder to Ubar’s Scribe One. To be sure, his opening had
caused me to move certain pieces more than once in my own opening.
Tula now swayed lasciviously, insistently, forwardly, before the table. I saw
Linda, kneeling somewhat behind Samos, regard her with fury. Slave girls
commonly compete shamelessly for the favor of the master. Tula, with those long,
tannish legs, the high cheekbones, the wild, black hair, the golden collar, was
very beautiful. It is pleasant to own women. But Samos paid her little, or no,
attention. With a toss of her head she spun away. She would spend the night in
the arms of another.
Samos made another move and so, too, did I.
I heard soft gasps and cries from across the room, the fall of a goblet, and
squirming. The former Lady Rowena of Lydius’s hands were no longer bound but
they were now held above and behind her head, each wrist in the hands of a
different man. She was on her back, thrown across one of the low tables.
Tonight, Samos seemed off his game.
I wondered if anything might be wrong.
“Did you want to see me?†I asked. It was unusual for Samos to invite me to his
holding simply for a game of kaissa.
He did not respond. He continued to regard
the board. Samos played well, but he
was not an enthusiast for the game. he had told me once he preferred a different
kaissa, one of politics and men.
page 30
“I do not think you brought m e here to play kaissa,†I said.
He did not respond.
“Guard your Ubar,†I said.
He withdrew the piece.
“have you heard aught of Kurii?†I asked.
“Little or nothing,†he said.
Our last major source of information on this matter, as far as I knew, had come
from a blond slave named Sheila. I recalled her kneeling naked before us, the
slave harness cinched on her in such a way as to enhance her beauty. She had
spoken obediently, and volubly, but she had been able, all in all, to help us
but little. Kurii, doubtless as a security measure, entrust little vital
information to their human agents. She had once been the Tatrix of Corcyrus. She
now belonged to Hassan of Kasra, often called Hassan, the Slave Hunter. I had
once been in Kasra. It is a river port on the Lower Fayeen. It is important in
the Tahari salt trade. When Samos had finished with her, she had, at the command
of Hassan, still in the harness, served the pleasure of both of us. She was then
hooded. The last time I saw her Hassan had put her in the bottom of a longboat
at Samos’ steps, descending to the canal. He had tied her ankles together and
pulled them up behind her body, fastening them there with a strap passed through
a ring at the back of the slave harness. I suspected she would not be freed from
the hood, except for its lifting to feed and water her, for days, not until she
was in Hassan’s keep in Kasra. I had little doubt he would see to it that she
served him well.
I nodded. From the testimony of Sheila, and other sources which seemed to
corroborate it, we gathered that the Kurii might now be turning to the patient
stratagems of piecemeal subversion, the control of cities and their eventual
linkages in networks of power, to win a world by means theoretically within the
laws and decrees of Priest-Kings. Indeed, for such a strategy to eventually
prove successful, it seemed not unlikely they would have at least the tolerance
of the Sardar itself. I shuddered. It would not bode well for humans, I thought,
if some form of liaison, or arrangement, were entered into between Priest-Kings
and Kurii.
“Have you heard aught from the Sardar?†I asked.
Samos looked up from the board.
Outside I could hear the sounds of yet another troupe traversing the canal, with
its raucous cries, its drums and trumpets. There had been several such troupes,
theatrical troupes, carnival troupes, this evening. It was now only two days to
carnival, to the Twelfth Passage Hand.
page 31
“Late in Se’Var,†said Samos, “a Torvaldsland voyageur, Yngvar, the
Far-Traveled, bought paga in the Four Chains.â€
I nodded. I knew the Four Chains. It was owned by Procopius Minor. It was near
Pier Sixteen. Procopius Minor is not to be confused with Procopius Major, who is
an important merchant in Port Kar, one with interests not only in taverns but in
paper, hardware, wool and salt. I had never heard of Yngvar, the Far-Traveled,
until recently. I did not know him. The time of which Samos spoke was about two
months ago.
“In his drinking, this Yngvar told many stories. One frightens and puzzles me.
Some fifty pasangs northeast of Scagnar he claims that he and his crew saw
something turning and spinning in the sky, like webbed glass, the light spilling
and refracting through it. They then saw a silverish disklike object near it.
These two objects, both, seemed to descend, as though to the sea itself. Then a
little later, the silverish object departed. Curious, frightened, they rowed to
the place where the objects had seemed to descend. There was not even a skerry
there. They were about to turn about when one of the men saw something. There,
not more than twenty yards from the ship, half submerged, was a large, winged
creature. They had never seen anything like this before. It was dead. They poked
it with spears. Then, after a time, it slipped beneath the water and
disappeared.â€
“I have heard the story,†I said. To be sure, I had heard it only a few days
ago. It, like other stories, seemed to circulate through the taverns. Yngvar,
with some fellow Torvaldslanders, had signed articles and taken ship northward
shortly thereafter. Neither Samos nor myself had been able to question them.
“The dating of this occurrence seems unclear,†I said.
“It was apparently not recent,†said Samos.
Presumably this had happened after the time I had gone to Torvaldsland, or, I
suppose, I would have heard of it while there. Interesting stories move swiftly
through the halls, conveyed by merchants and singers. Too, such a story would be
widely told, on supposes, at a Thing-Fair. I went to Torvaldsland in the
Rune-Year 1,006. Years, in the chronology of Torvaldsland, are counted from the
time of Thor’s gift of the stream of Torvald to Torvald, the legendary founder
and hero of the northern fatherlands. the calendars are kept by Rune-Priests.
That would have been 10,122 C.A., or Year 3 of the Sovereignty of the Council of
Captains in Port Kar. I suspected, though I did not know, that the events
recounted by Yngvar had occurred from four to five years ago.
“It was probably a few years ago,†said Samos.
page 32
“Probably,†I granted him.
“The ship was probably a ship of Priest-Kings,†said Samos.
“I would suppose so,†I said. It did not seem likely that a Kur ship would move
openly in Gorean air space.
“it is an interesting story,†said Samos.
“Yes,†I said.
“Perhaps it has some significance,†said Samos.
“Perhaps,†I said.
I recalled, long ago, in the Nest, when I had seen the dying Mother. “I see him,
I see him,†she had said, “and his wings are like showers of gold.†She had then
lain quietly on the stone. “The Mother is dead,†had said Misk. Her last memory,
interestingly, it seemed, had been of her Nuptial Flight. There was now,
doubtless, a new Mother in the Nest. Yngvar and his fellows, unwittingly, I was
confident, had witnessed the inauguration of a new dynasty among Priest-Kings.
“Have you heard anything from the Sardar?†I asked, again.
Samos looked down at the board. I did not press him. His reticence to respond
directly puzzled me. If he had heard something, of course, it was perhaps none
of my business. I had no intention of prying into his affairs, or those of
Priest-Kings. Also, of course, perhaps he had heard nothing.
“You are not playing your usual game,†I told him.
“I am sorry,†he said.
A new girl, Susan, was now dancing. She who had been the Lady Rowena of Lydius
was o her belly on a table, clutching its sides, her teeth gritted. Tula was
being handed from man to man. Some of t
he other girls, too, were now being used
by masters. And others were licking and kissing at them, and whispering in their
ears, begging for attention.
We played another pair of moves.
“What is bothering you?†I asked Samos.
“Nothing,†he said.
“Is there much news?†I asked.
“Tarnsmen from Treve had raided the outskirts of Ar,†said Samos.
“They grow bold,†I said.
Cos and Ar are still at odds,†he said.
“Of course,†I said.
“The building of ships in Tyros continues,†he said.
“Chenbar has a long memory,†I said. Much of the naval power of Tyros had been
destroyed in the battle of the 25th of
page 33
Se’Kara. This had taken place in Year One of the Sovereignty of the Council of
Captains, in 10,120 C.A.
“On Cos, as our spies have it,†said Samos, “there is much training of men, and
a recruitment of mercenaries.â€
“We could strike at the shipyards of Tyros,†I said, “ten ramships, a thousand
men, a picked force.â€
“The yards are well fortified,†he said.
“Do you think Cos and Tyros will move?†I asked.
“yes,†he said.
“When?†I asked.
“I do not know,†he said.
“It is interesting,†I said. “I cannot see Port Kar as a great threat to them.
The power of Ar in the Vosk Basin would seem a much greater threat to their
influence, and their sphere of trade.â€
“One would think so,†said Samos.
“Matters are complicated there now, of course,†I said, “by the formation of the
Vosk League.â€
“That is true,†said Samos.
“What is the nature of the training being given the men on Cos?†I asked.
“Infantry training,†he said.
“That is interesting,†I said. it did not seem likely to me that infantry, at
least in its normal deployments and tactics, would be successful in an assault
on Port Kar. This had primarily to do with her situation, in the northwestern
portion of the estuary of the Vosk, the waters of the Tamber Guld and Thassa
before her, the vast, trackless marshes of the Vosk’s delta behind her.
Norman, John - Gor 20 - Players of Gor.txt Page 4
