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

by Players of Gor [lit]

she had learned, incontrovertibly, what she was.

  “Are you her owner?” asked Temenides.

  “Yes, Master,” said Boots.

  “Send her to my table,” said Temenides.

  “That is not so easy,” said Boots.

  “Now,” said Temenides.

  “Though she is my slave,” said Boots, in explanation, “yet her use has been

  given to our player, he who travels with my small and humble troupe.”

  At this point Bina, alarmed, suddenly put her head down and lifted and extended

  her left arm, the wrist hanging down. In this fashion she prominently displayed

  the salve bracelet on her left wrist.

  “I want her,” said Temenides.

  “Please, Master,” suggested Boots. “Take our Rowena or Telitsia. Both have

  learned passion in the collar, and the total of pleasing men.”

  “It is she whom I want,” said Temenides, pointing at Bina. She kept her head

  down, trembling.

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  “I have given her use to another,” said Boots, desperately.

  “It is now time to revoke your misguided and meaningless courtesy,” said

  Temenides. “I instruct you to do so.”

  “Please, Master,” said Boots. “Consider my honor.”

  “Consider something yourself,” said Temenides, player of Cos, “your life.”

  “Sir?” asked Boots, turning pale.

  It interested me that the player should be so bold. He was not in Cos. Indeed,

  it was somewhat strange that he was here, and certainly strange that he was

  seated at the table of Belnar. Brundisium was not even an ally of Cos. She was

  an ally of Ar.

  “Reclaim her use rights, now,” said Temenides. “You are her master. The ultimate

  say in this matter is yours. Be quick about it.”

  Belnar, I noted, rather than suggesting civility in his hall, quaffed paga,

  noncommittally.

  “I am waiting,” said Temenides.

  Suddenly the player, the hooded player, he called the “monster,” he who now had

  Bina’s use, rose form his place at a table and climbed the stairs to the stage.

  He looked about himself scornfully, regally, an attitude that seemed sorely at

  odds with his station in a lowly, intinerate troupe. HE placed a coin, a golden

  tarn disk, in the palm of Boots Tarsk-Bit. Boots looked at it, disbelievingly.

  He had probably not seen too many coins of that sort in his life. He had

  particularly, doubtless, never expected to receive one from the player.

  “I do not own her!” cried Boots suddenly to Temenides, in relief. He pointed at

  the player. “He owns her,” he said. “He just bought her!”

  The girl cried out in astonishment, looking up at the player from her knees.

  The hall was now muchly silent. That something of interest might be transpiring

  on the stage seemed somehow, suddenly, almost as if by secret communication, to

  be understood by all in that hall. Rowena and Lady Telitsia, breathing heavily,

  their nipples erected, their bodies red with usage, bruises on their arms where

  they had been held down and roughly handled, turned to their sides and, palms on

  the tiles, looked up to the stage. Even the numerous naked slaves who were

  serving the tables and, as men wished them, the banqueters, stopped serving,

  and, carrying their vessels and trays, stood still, looking, too, to the stage.

  Slowly, beautifully, kneeling before him, looking up at him, Bina opened her

  thighs before the player.

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  “You own me,” she said to the player.

  “Yes,” he said.

  “You are the first man before whom,” she said, “I have ever willingly opened my

  thighs.”

  He looked down at her, not speaking.

  “I love you,” she said.

  He did not respond to the slave.

  “I love your strength, and your manhood,” she said. “And that you have taught me

  my slavery.”

  “Kiss my feet,” he said.

  “Yes, Master,” she said.

  “So, player,” said Temenides, “you know own her. You are a fool to have paid a

  golden tarn disk for such a woman. But it changes nothing. Send her to my

  table.”

  Bina lifted her head from the player’s feet. She knelt before him, tears in her

  eyes, looking up at him. “I love you,” she said.

  “How can you love a monster,” he asked.

  “I have secretly loved you for months,” she said. “I loved you even when I

  despised you and hated you, and thought you weak. Now I love you a thousand

  times more, that you are strong.”

  “But I am a ‘monster’,” he said.

  “I do not care what you are, or think you are,” she said.

  “But what of my hideousness?” he asked.

  “Your appearance does not matter to me,” she said. “I do not care what you look

  like. It is you, the man, the master, I love.”

  “I have never been loved,” he said.

  “I can give you only a slave’s love,” she said, “but there is no greater, deeper

  love.”

  He looked down upon her.

  “Do not be weak with me,” she begged.

  “I will not,” he said. “You will when necessary, or when it pleases me, know the

  whip.”

  “Yes, Master,” she said, happily.

  “Perhaps you did not hear me,” said Temenides, angrily. “I told you to send her

  to my table!”

  “Send me to his table, Master,” she begged. “I will try to serve him well.”

  “Oh!” she cried, in pain, cuffed to her side on the stage. She looked up at the

  player, startled, blood at the side of her mouth.

  “Were you given permission to speak?” inquired the player.

  “No, Master,” she said.

  “Then be silent,” he said.

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  “Yes, Master,” she said.

  The player then turned toward Temenides. “Did you say something?” he asked.

  “Send the female slave to my table,” said Temenides, angrily, pointing at Bina.

  “No,” said the player.

  “Ubar!” cried Temenides, turning to corpulent Belnar, lounging behind the low

  table, rolling in his fat, eating grapes.

  “Perhaps you could buy her,” suggested Belnar, dropping a grape into his mouth.

  “He just paid a golden tarn disk for her,” protested Temenides.

  Belnar, not speaking, slowly put two such disks on the table.

  “Thank you, Ubar!” said Temenides. He snatched up the two coins. “Here, fool,”

  he said tot he player, lifting up the coins. “Here is a hundred times what she

  is worth, and twice what you paid for her! She is now mine!”

  “No,” said the player.

  Temenides cast a startled glance at Belnar. Belnar, saying nothing, put three

  more coins on the table. There were gasps about the hall. Then five coins,

  altogether, five golden tarn disks, and o
f Ar herself, as it was pointed out,

  were offered to the player for his Bina, lifted in the furious, clenched fist of

  Temenides, of Cos, one of the masters of the high boards of Kaissa in that

  powerful island ubarate.

  “No,” said the player.

  “Take her from him,” said Temenides to Belnar. “Use your soldiers.”

  Belnar glanced about himself, to some of the guardsmen at the side of the hall.

  “I am a citizen of Ar,” said the player. “It is my understanding that the cities

  of Brundisium and Ar stand leagued firmly in friendship, that the wine has been

  drunk between them, and the salt and fire shared, that they are pledged both in

  comity and alliance, military and political. If this is not true, I should like

  to be informed, that word may be carried to Ar of this change in matters.

  Similarly, I am curious to know why a player of Cos, no understood ambassador or

  herald, sits at a high table, at the table even of Belnar, Ubar of this city.

  Similarly, how is it that Temenides, only a player, and one of Cos, as well, to

  whom both Brundisium and AR stand opposed, to whom both accord their common

  defiance, dares to speak so boldly? Perhaps something has occurred of which I

  was not informed, that ubars now take their orders from enemies, and those not

  even of high caste?”

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  Belnar turned away from the soldiers. He did not summon them.

  “I have soldiers of my own,” said Temenides. “With your permission, Ubar, I

  shall summon them.”

  I found this of interest. Surely members of the caste of players do not commonly

  travel about with a military escort.

  Belnar shrugged.

  Temenides, triumphantly, turned about, looking about the hall.

  “I cannot believe the Belnar is serious,” said the player. “Are soldiers of Cos

  within the walls of Brundisium to receive an official sanction to steal from

  citizens of Ar? Is that the meaning of our alliance?”

  Belnar put another grape in his mouth.

  “Ubar?” asked Temenides.

  “I have a much better idea,” said Belnar, smiling. “He is a player. You will

  play for her.”

  The player folded his arms and regarded Temenides.

  “Ubar!” protested Temenides. “Consider my honor! I play among the high boards of

  Cos. This is a mountebank, a player at carnivals, no member even of the caste of

  players!”

  Belnar shrugged.

  “Do not think to suggest that I should dishonor my caste by stooping to shame

  this arrogant cripple. Far nobler it would be to set your finest swordsmen upon

  some dimwitted bumpkin brandishing a spoon. Let him rather be driven from the

  hall with the blows of belts like a naked slave for his presumption!”

  “Would the court not find such a contest amusing?” inquired Belnar.

  Several of the men slapped their shoulders in encouragement. Others called out

  for a game. I gathered that among those present this discomfiture of Temenides,

  matching him with so unworthy and preposterous an opponent, might not be

  unwelcome. In its nature it would be a prank, a practical joke, perhaps a

  somewhat cruel one, at the least a broad Gorean jest.

  “Ubar,” said Temenides, “do not call for this match. I have no desire to

  humiliate this deformed freak more than I have already done. Order the female

  suppliantly to me.”

  Bina, terrified, threw herself to her stomach before the player on the platform.

  She kissed the wood twice before his feet. Then, lifting herself on the palms of

  her hands, she looked piteously up at him. “Risk not so much in this hall, I beg

  of you, Master,” she wept. “Permit me to crawl suppliantly to him, proposing

  myself for his pleasures.”

  “Strip,” snarled the player.

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  Instantly Bina tore away the scarf knotted about her hips, that which had

  formerly been tied about her throat, concealing her collar.

  The player continued to regard her.

  She now knelt weeping, trembling, before him, at his mercy, owned, slave naked.

  “Now,” said the player, “what did you say?”

  “Permit me to crawl suppliantly to him, proposing myself for his pleasures,” she

  whispered, frightened.

  The player suddenly, angrily, kicked her to her side. She cried out with pain

  and twisting, frightened, a spurned and disciplined slave, turned to look at

  him. On her left wrist there was a use bracelet. ON her neck there was a collar.

  ON her thigh was a brand.

  “You belong to me,” he said.

  “Yes, Master,” she said.

  “It seems,” said Belnar to Temenides, amused, “that the player is disinclined to

  extend to you the female’s use.”

  “Do not seek to force a match between us, Ubar,” said Temenides. “I will not

  consider a match with such a fellow, not with a creature of such outrageous

  deformity, not with one such as he, one who is, by all reports, at best naught

  but a harrowingly disfigured monster.”

  “The slave is exquisite,” said Belnar. “Apparently you do not wish to have her

  yielding helplessly, passionately, obediently in her collar, in your arms.”

  “Ubar,” said Temenides, in protest.

  “Play,” said Belnar.

  “Forcing me to such an extremity,” said Temenides, “could well be construed as a

  state insult in the lofty chambers of Cos.”

  This remark surprised me. How could such a trivial thing as a joke in

  Brundisium, one having to do with a mere member of the caste of players, the

  fellow, Temenides, involve relations among thrones?

  “Very well,” said Belnar, agreeably, “but forgo then the woman.”

  Temenides’ fists clenched. He regarded Bina, who shrank back from his gaze.

  “Play, play!” urged more than one man.

  Temenides looked about himself, angrily. Then he regarded the player.

  “Perhaps the great Temenides, who holds a high board in Cos, fears to enter into

  a banquet’s friendly game, or, say, an

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  evening’s casual tourney, with one who is a mere mountebank, a monster,”

  suggested the player.

  There was laughter at this suggestion. Temenides turned red.

  “Could it be?” asked the player.

  “I do not play bumpkins,” said Temenides.

  “I, on the other hand,” said the player, “am obviously willing to do so.”

  This remark brought a roar of laughter from the crowd. Even Belnar chuckled.

  Temenides turned even more red, and clenched his fists savagely. His mood was

  turning ugly.

  Near the feet of the player, Bina trembled, head down.

  Temenides rose to his feet. In his movement, studied and unprecipitated, there

  was resolution and menace. “Very well,” said he. “I shall play you, but it shall

  be but one game, and upon one condition, that the game may be worth my while.”

  The hall was suddenly quiet. Temenides spoke softly and clearly. I
N his words

  there was an exactness, and a chill. His anger now was like the stirring of a

  beast beneath ice, whose shape may be vaguely seen below, giving some hint of

  the force and danger lurking in the depths. “We shall play,” said he, “not for

  the mere use of the female, but for her ownership, to see whose collar it will

  be that shall be locked upon her throat. Further, the life of he who loses shall

  be forfeit to the victor, to be done with as he pleases.”

  Several of those in the hall gasped. “But he is a free man,” protested one. It

  is one thing to play for a female, of course, for Goreans tend to regard such as

  fit for spoils and loot, particularly if they should be, to begin with, naught

  but properties, mere chattels, but it is quite another to set free males at

  stake.

  Temenides did not respond to this protest.

  “And,” asked the player, “if you should win, and claim, this forfeit, what might

  I expect to be your pleasure?”

  “That you be boiled alive in the oil of tharlarion,” said Temenides.

  “I see,” said the player. Bina moaned.

  “There will now be no game,” said one of the fellows at the Ubar’s table.

  “Well, fellow?” inquired Temenides.

  “Agreed,” said the player.

  Several of those in the hall, free men and naked slaves alike, gasped. “No, no,

  Master, please!” cried Bina.

  “Be silent,” said the player.

  “Yes, Master,” she wept.

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  “Secure the female,” said Belnar. “Let a board and pieces be brought.”

  Bina’s hands were thonged tightly together before her body. A ring, on a rope,

  one of several, was lowered from the ceiling. These rings, when lowered, hung a

  few feet above the floor, some six or seven feet above it, in the open space

  between the tables. These rings may serve various purposes, such as the display

  of disgraced females destined for slavery, most likely debtors, or the public

  punishment of errant slaves, but their number is largely dictated by the

  occasional use of displaying captured, stripped free women of enemy cities.

  These women, during the course of a victory feast, are caressed by whips, or

  beaten by them, until they beg, though free, to serve the tables as slaves.

  After they have so served, Ahn later, they are taken below. there they will be