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

Norman, John - Gor 20 - Players of Gor.txt Page 54

by Players of Gor [lit]

  Petrucchio.

  “I am sure it will,” I said.

  “And of how he fell at last, bloodied beneath the blades of frenzied, hostile

  brigades!”

  “Yes,” I said.

  Petrucchio suddenly slumped in my arms.

  “He is dead!” cried Chino.

  “Petrucchio,” I said.

  “Yes?” he said, opening his eyes.

  “Don’t do that,” I said.

  “Did I play it well?” Petrucchio asked Andronicus, his mentor in such matters.

  “Splendidly, old friend,” said Andronicus.

  “It was nice of you to come looking for me,” said Petrucchio.

  “It was nothing,” Andronicus assured him.

  “Not that I needed help,” said Petrucchio.

  “Of course not,” said Andronicus.

  “If the sheaf of notes on acting hints, those on the detailed deportment of the

  head and hands, prepared by you by Publius Andronicus, had not somewhat turned

  the blade of Flaminius, it might have been a different matter,” I told

  Petrucchio.

  “Perhaps,” he admitted, generously. “I had thought that perhaps such theory

  might one day prove its value.”

  “Petrucchio,” said Andronicus, warningly.

  “You must get him out of here,” I told Andronicus. “I think you can mange it in

  your guise as a visiting general.”

  “I fear it will be more difficult for you to leave the city,” said Andronicus.

  “IT seems every guardsman in Brundisium is on the lookout for you. Some who can

  recognize you, slaves, courtiers, and such, will be, I suspect, at every gate.”

  “I will leave the city as originally planned,” I said. “It seems the only

  practical way.”

  “Do you still have the device I gave you?” asked Lecchio.

  “Yes,” I said.

  “And where it no longer suffices,” he said, “you must make do otherwise.”

  “I know,” I said.

  “Remember not to look down at your feet,” he said, “for you will not be able to

  react that quickly, but to look ahead of you, where you are going.”

  “Yes,” I said.

  “You must think, too, with your feet and body, with its slightest sensations.”

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  “I remember your training,” I said.

  “So do I,” he said. “Thus I urge you to be careful.”

  “Of course,” I said.

  “Do you have the other material, as well?” he asked.

  “Yes,” I said.

  “Perhaps we should be on our way,” said Andronicus, “before those of Brundisium

  begin to gather their wits about themselves.”

  “Take these papers,” I said to Andronicus. “They are important. Give them to

  Scormus. He will know what to do with them. He has other papers, too, that are

  pertinent to these matters.”

  “Where will we meet you?” asked Andronicus.

  “At the prearranged place,” I said, “if all goes well.”

  “I wish you well,” said Andronicus.

  “I wish you well, too, all of you,” I said.

  In a moment, then, Andronicus had again placed his help over his features. He

  did so majestically. He straightened his body, regally. He was again a general.

  “Come, men,” said he, “and bring the prisoner, he who is wanted din Ar.”

  He was quite impressive.

  “Not bad, eh?” asked Andronicus.

  “No,” I said.

  “Do not forget my sword,” said Petrucchio.

  “We will pick it up on the way out,” Lecchio assured him.

  “Come, men!” said Andronicus, again the general. He then exited, somewhat

  grandly, followed by Chino and Lecchio, supporting Petrucchio between them.

  “I did not know Petrucchio was wanted in Ar,” Lecchio was saying, in character.

  “Be quiet!” Chino was cautioning him, grunting, and not altogether amused.

  I watched them, to make certain they did not get into any trouble, as least as

  far as I could follow them, visually. Then I took my way back through the

  apartments to where we had secured the prisoners. We had tied them, stripped,

  standing, their back to the bars, their arms lifted and spread, wrists tied back

  to the bars, ankles, too, to the barred gate, then again dropped, which had

  originally prevented me from immediately following Belnar. We had used it

  because it resembled a slaver’s grid, to which slaves may be bound at a master’s

  pleasure in an almost infinite variety of attitudes and positions, ranging from

  quite standard to exquisitely exotic. We had lowered the gate this time from the

  outside, from the apartment side, by means of a

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  cord which we attached to the drop lever and then passed through the bars. IN

  this fashion, it could be dropped form the front, rather than the rear. We had

  then only to fasten our prisoners, in whatever manner we chose, to it.

  “Do not kill me!” cried Flaminius, twisting in the cords, seeing me approaching

  through the apartments, the steel of my sword bared. “Please, no, Master!” cried

  Yanina, pulling helplessly at the restraints that held her back against the

  bars. “Please have mercy on a slave! Please do not kill me!” They had both

  hoped, doubtless, desperately, that we had all taken our leave. But I had come

  back.

  I put the point of the sword to the throat of Flaminius. He began to sweat.

  “Don’t kill me,” he whispered. Then I lowered the sword. “No,” he said, “please,

  no.”

  I then resheathed the blade. I then freed Yanina from the bars and threw her to

  the tiles before Flaminius, there having her. “Oh, oh,” she wept.

  I thrust her form me. She lay near me, shuddering, trying to comprehend what had

  been done to her. Being had as a collared slave is quite different, in all its

  modalities, and however it id done, to having polite love made to one as a

  respected free woman. I lay propped on my elbow. I regarded Flaminius. “Your

  slave is not much good,” I said.

  “Forgive me, Master,” whispered the girl. “I was terrified.”

  “Terror, mixing in with the other feelings of a female, can be a powerful

  stimulant to passion,” I said.

  “yes, Master,” she whispered.

  “Surely many girls have known terror at the very thought of not being fully

  pleasing to a master.”

  “Yes, Master,” she said.

  “Doubtless men will be coming soon,” I said to Flaminius, “to look for you. Thus

  I should quickly have done with your and be on my way.”

  “There is no hurry,” cried Flaminius. “It may not even be known we are here. Men

  may not come for Ahn!”

  “Oh?” I asked.

  “She can do better!” said Flaminius, hastily.

  “Master!” protested Yanina.

  I took her again into my arms, and looked
into her eyes.

  “Yes, yes!” said Flaminius. “Use her again! I freely grant her use to you.”

  “You are generous,” I said. She struggled, naked, in my arms.

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  “Is she not beautiful?” asked Flaminius. “Do you not desire her?”

  “She is lusciously soft,” I admitted, “and is appealing, held helplessly. Too,

  she has a lovely face and figure.”

  “Use her!” urged Flaminius.

  “Master!” wept Yanina.

  “You dolt!” hissed Flaminius to Yanina. “Beguile him! Please him! Encourage him

  to dalliance! Buy time! Do you want us both to be killed?”

  “What are you saying to her?” I inquired, getting up.

  “Nothing,” said Flaminius.

  “I must be on my way,” I said. I put my hand on the hilt of my sword. I noted,

  not of the corner of my eye, a look of terror transforming the lovely

  countenance of the slave, Yanina.

  “Master,” she cried, anxiously, frightened, grasping me about the knees, “do not

  yet go!”

  “I must be on my way,” I said.

  “Dally,” she begged. “Let Yanina please you!”

  I looked at Flaminius.

  “There is time,” he assured me.

  “Yanina begs to please Master!” she said. “Yanina will do anything!”

  “Anything?” I asked.

  “Yes, Master!” she said.

  I smiled to myself. Her protestations evidenced her newness to the collar. Did

  she not yet know that nay slave must do anything, and everything, at the merest

  suggestion of a master, at his merest word, even at his slightest gesture, or

  glance? That is something that most girls learn quite quickly.

  I looked down at her.

  “Yanina begs to please Master!” she whispered.

  “Perhaps,” I said.

  I rose to my feet. It was late in the afternoon. There was only some smoke over

  Brundisium now, and I gathered that the fires were now mostly under control. No

  one had come to the apartments. I had not expected them to, or at least not

  quickly. In this my own anticipations had proved sounder than those of

  Flaminius. There had been much for them to do elsewhere. Too, I suspected that

  the city captain had now assumed authority in the city, now that Belnar had been

  killed. Flaminius’ power, I suspected, had largely been a matter of his

  closeness to the ubar, and his control of special projects, under the direction

  of the ubar. He was not, as far as I knew, a member of the city

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  administration nor did he hold, as far as I could tell, any official position or

  rank in the army, or the civic or merchant guard, of Brundisium. He did have,

  presumably, through Belnar, connections with members of the high council of the

  city. Members of that council had doubtless been closely associated with Belnar

  in his various projects. no new ubar, as far as I could tell, had yet been

  appointed by the council. There had been, at least, no general ringing of bars

  such as might be expected to announce such an appointment. Had men arrived at

  the apartments, of course, they would have found them locked. They would then

  presumably leave. If they chose to enter, they would have had to break through

  doors. By that time, of course, I would have had time to take my leave, in the

  manner originally planned.

  I glanced down to Yanina. She lay on her stomach, on some furs I had thrown

  before the barred gate. her hands, palms down, on the soft furs, were at the

  sides of her head. There was now a chain on her neck. I had found it in the

  apartments. It was some eight feet in length. It was padlocked about her neck, a

  heavy lock under her chin, and when I wished, as now, not wanting it for a leash

  or alternative tether, it was fastened by a similar lock about the bars of the

  gate, near its foot.

  She had served well on it, for Ahn. On it she had, at my direction, assumed

  slave poses, and had been put various times through intricate slave paces. On it

  she had even performed placatory slave dances, dances of the sort in which the

  female tires to convince the male that she might perhaps be worth sparing, if

  only for the pleasure she might bring him. Too, of course, as it had pleased me,

  and in a variety of fashions, I had used her. Flaminius, however, it seemed, did

  not derive the same pleasure from this that I did. I now glanced to Flaminius.

  He was now sitting on the floor, back against the bars, his wrists spread, where

  I could see them, tied back against them, at junctures of vertical bars with a

  flat, supportive crossbar, some six inches from the floor. IN this fashion he

  could not bet up nor could he effectively use his feet. I had put him in this

  fashion, thinking it might be more comfortable for the fellow.

  Flaminius, my prisoner, looked away, not wanting to meet my eyes.

  I went to the side and removed a bowl from its padded, insulating wrap. Its

  contents were still warm. It was a mash of cooked vulo and rice. Earlier I had

  taken Yanina to the kitchen. There, under my supervision, on her chain,

  kneeling, she had cooked it. It was perhaps the first thing she had ever cooked.

  I had, too, once, later in the afternoon, taken her into a couple of

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  rooms, where I had her tidy them up. I pleased me to see her, once the proud

  Lady Yanina, helplessly performing these small, domestic tasks. Being a slave is

  a whole way of life, involving a total modality of existence. There is a great

  deal more to it than simply serving a master on the furs.

  “Eat,” I said to Flaminius, spooning some vulo and rice into his mouth. Then, in

  a bit, I took the bowl, the spoon in it, to where the girl lay. “Kneel,” I said

  to her.

  “Yes, Master,” she said.

  I then took bits of vulo from the bowl and held them out to the girl. I also put

  some rice in the palm of my hand, from which she took it. I heard Flaminius gasp

  in anger. “Do you object/” I asked. His slave, before him, was eating from the

  hand of another man. To be sure, we had all eaten earlier, as well. Then,

  however, I had had Yanina eat from a pan on the floor.

  “No,” said Flaminius, hastily.

  Yanina looked up at me. She had taken food from my hand.

  “Are you sure you do not object?” I asked.

  “No, no!” he said, quickly.

  I then put the bowl aside. I also picked up my sword sheath, the belt wrapped

  about it, the blade housed in it.

  I looked at Flaminius.

  “Do not kill me,” he said, suddenly.

  “By now,” I said, “I believe the papers which I sought, those whose security you

  had hoped to guarantee, have left the city.”

  “It does not matter,” he said, hastily.

  “Once, long ago,” I said, “when you sought to consign me to the mercies of urts,

  I questioned you as to certain matters. You informed me, as I recall, that you

  did not choose to answer my questions.”

  He regarded me, frightened.

  I dr
ew the blade.

  “Perhaps now,” I said, “you will choose to answer them.”

  “I know little about what transpires between Cos and Brundisium,” he said. “It

  has to do with Ar. Too, negotiations have been conducted with secret parties in

  Ar, parties traitorous to that city.”

  “Such as yourself?” I asked.

  “Perhaps,” he said, fearfully. “But what is that to you? Are you of Ar?”

  “No,” I said. “But I respect the Home Stone of Ar, as that of other cities.”

  He shrugged.

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  “Your response,” I said, “is unsatisfactory.” My blade was at his throat.

  “You must have the secret papers,” he said. “Otherwise you would not have sought

  the keys so diligently. Examine them. The answers you seek, or some of them,

  must be there!”

  “An attempt was made on my life, in Port Kar,” I said. “Were you responsible for

  that?”

  “No,” he said. “We only followed orders, through Belnar.”

  “What interest would Belnar have had in such a thing?” I asked.

  “None, really,” he said, wincing, the blade at his throat. “He acted in

  obedience to the will of another, one more powerful than he.”

  “What other?” I asked.

  “Lurius,” he said. “Lurius of Jad, Ubar of Cos!”

  “Lurius?” I said.

  “Yes!” he cried. “Don’t kill me!”

  I withdrew the blade from his throat, and he shuddered in his bonds. I had not

  even thought of gross Lurius, he of Jad, he who was ubar of Cos. Once, long ago,

  I had sacked a treasure fleet bound from Tyros to Cos, intended for Lurius. Too,

  at that time, I had taken and chained naked at the prow of my flagship, as a

  trophy of my victory, the lovely young Vivina, who was being brought to Telnus,

  the capital of Cos, to be entered into companionship with him, then to be his

  royal consort. In Port Kar, then, later, I had had her collared, and locked

  beneath the slaving iron. She was not the preferred slave of Henrius, a captain

  in Port Kar.

  “Why has Lurius acted in this matter only now?” I asked.

  “I do not know,” said Flaminius, frightened.

  It had to do, I was sure, with new movements in the politics of cities. It had

 

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