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

Norman, John - Gor 20 - Players of Gor.txt Page 55

by Players of Gor [lit]

  to do, I supposed, not only with me, personally, but with Port Kar, as well. To

  be sure, Lurius had a long memory.

  “I am naked and bound,” said Flaminius. “You cannot kill me in cold blood!”

  “I can,” I said.

  He regarded me with horror.

  “If the semantics of the matter trouble you,” I said, “you may regard it as an

  execution.”

  “On what grounds!” he cried.

  “For treason to Ar,” I said.

  “I am at your mercy,” he said. “Spare me!”

  “I may consider doing so,” I said.

  “Please him!” cried Flaminius to Yanina. “Please him!”

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  I felt Yanina’s tongue, and lips, at my feet. “I desire to do so,” she said.

  “Slut!” cried Flaminius.

  I looked down at the girl rendering her submission at my feet. I sheathed my

  sword.

  I held Yanina in my arms, before Flaminius. I looked down into her eyes.

  “You well tricked us,” she said. “How you had me thinking myself so clever! What

  you had out of me, what you made me do! How shameless and wanton I had to be!

  How you let me think that I was beguiling you, that I in a desperate fashion was

  buying time for rescuers to appear. Buy you had all, all, and no rescuers

  appeared!”

  “The slaves owes such, and more, to any master who commands her,” I said.

  “Yes, Master,” she said.

  “Rescuers might have appeared,” I said. “It was merely that I did not expect

  them to do so.”

  “What would you have done, if they had arrived?” she asked.

  “I would have left,” I said.

  “So simply?” she said.

  “Yes,” I said. “Do you question me?”

  “No,” she said. “Yanina does not question Master.”

  I took the heavy padlock in my fingers, that under her chin, that which held the

  chain on her neck. I flipped it, and let it fall back. She could feel its weight

  drag against the chain. “It holds me well,” she said.

  I put my head down, and kissed her, and her lips met mine, yielding, in the

  unmistakable softness, and submission, and gratitude, of the owned slave.

  “Slave!” snarled Flaminius.

  “I began, Master, this morning,” she whispered to me, “pretending, but

  somewhere, I am not sure where, surely by this afternoon, I realized that I was

  no longer pretending. I realized more than anything, to love and serve men, and

  to please them wholly and selflessly, as a slave her masters.”

  I then, gently, to the fury of Flaminius, took her, as she gasped, and clutched,

  and thanked me.

  “You yield well,” I told her.

  “Hateful slut!” cried Flaminius. “Despicable slave!”

  “I am a girl on a chain,” she smiled. “Is it not appropriate that I so yield?”

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  “It is,” I said.

  “And if I did not yield well,” she asked, “would you whip me, or have your

  menials do so?”

  “Under certain circumstances, and in certain contexts,” I said, “of course.”

  “You have taught me much,” she said.

  “Perhaps,” I said.

  “You know you have spoiled me forever for freedom,” she said.

  “Oh?” I said.

  “I know wan my collar,” she said. “I love it. I want to serve, and love. It is

  what I am.”

  “You re a female,” I said.

  “yes, Master,” she said. “But even did I not desire it, men would see to it that

  I know served choicelessly, and with perfection, would they not?”

  “yes,” I said.

  “That is what I desire,” she said.

  “It is late,” I said. “ mist now take my leave from the city.”

  She began to tremble in my arms.

  “What is wrong?” I asked.

  “Not that I have yielded to you, and now that I have learned my slavery, you

  will not kill me, will you?”

  “Perhaps not,” I said.

  “But you have something else in mind for me, don’t you,” she asked, “something

  appropriate for what I now am, a slave?”

  “Perhaps,” I said.

  “But Flaminius you might kill,” she said.

  “Yes,” I said.

  “No!” cried Flaminius, sitting naked before the bars, his back to them, his

  wrists tied back to them of either side of his body.

  I rose to my feet and donned my garments, and retrieved the sheath, with the

  belt and sword. It was now late. The moons were out. I came back and stood

  before Flaminius.

  “No!” he said. “Do not kill me, please!”

  I glanced down at the girl. She way lying on her belly, on the furs, the heavy

  chain padlocked about her neck, over her collar, the other end of it fastening

  her to the foot of the bars. Moonlight and a tracery of shadows, from the

  lattice of a window, was on her body.

  “I give her to you!” cried Flaminius. “I do not want her! She is only a slut and

  a slave!”

  “Do you do so, freely,” I asked, “without obligation on my

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  part, your gift having no pertinence to what now may, or may not, be done to

  you?”

  “Of course!” he said. “Of course!”

  “I accept your gift,” I said. The girl gasped at my feet. I now owned her.

  “Kneel,” I said to her, “to hear my will with respect to you.”

  Swiftly she knelt before me, trembling, straightening her body.

  “Hear this, too, Flaminius,” I said.

  “Yes,” he said. “Yes!”

  “She is to be delivered to my holding, the holding of Bosk of Port Kar, in Port

  Kar,” I said.

  “Yes,” he said.

  “And she is to be delivered in the following fashion,” I said.

  “Yes?” he said.

  “She is to be drugged with Tassa powder,” I said, “and packed in a barrel with

  parsit fish.”

  “It will be done as you wish,” said Flaminius.

  It was in this fashion that she had smuggled me, and several others, out of Port

  Kar. She would now be returned to the city in the same fashion, only as a slave.

  “Do you object, Yanina?” I asked.

  “No, Master,” she said.

  “If this is not done,” I said to Flaminius, “I will not be pleased. Think, too,

  that someday, somewhere, we might meet again. Consider even the possibility that

  I, displeased, might come to seek you out.”

  “The matter will be attended to,” said Flaminius, “I assure you, exactly

  according to your instructions.”

  “You may kiss my feet, slave,” I said.

  Swiftly Yanina put her head down, and did so.

  I then left. “Untie me, Slave!” I heard, behi
nd me. “The knots are too tight,

  Master,” she wept. “I cannot undo them.” “Chew through the thongs, then” he

  said, “Hurry! Hurry!” “Yes, Master!” she wept. “Yes, Master!” I heard the

  movement of her chain on the tiles. Outside, in the garden, off in the distance,

  on one of the bridges, I saw some men approaching. They had not yet seen me. I

  did not even know if they would. I looked at the slender, swaying tarn wire. I

  took the small, flanged metal wheel, with its protruding axlelike spindle, from

  my pouch. I also put the thick leather gloves on my hands.

  22 What Occurred on the Coast of Thassa; It Has Begun

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  “We were afraid!” cried Boots. “What kept you?”

  “Attentions delivered upon a female slave,” I said, “having primarily to do with

  her training.”

  “Of course!” said Scormus.

  “Do we know her?” asked Chino.

  “She was once the Lady Yanina,” I said.

  “Superb!” said Chino.

  “She is now mine,” I said.

  “Excellent,” said Chino.

  “She is to be delivered to Port Kar,” I said, “to my holding, packed in a barrel

  with parsit fish.”

  “Excellent,” said Lecchio. Rowena and Telitsia clapped their hands with

  pleasure, delighted that the once-proud Lady Yanina now shared their condition,

  that of the helpless and abject slaves of strong masters. Bina, I saw, kneeling

  near Scormus, had eyes only for him. No longer was his use bracelet on her

  wrist, but his collar was now on her neck. I had little doubt that yesterday

  morning she would have been whipped, for having spoken without permission, as he

  had informed her in the hall of Belnar. This morning, however, it did not seem

  that she had felt the whip, other than, doubtless, the whip of the furs, at the

  hand of her gifted, imperious master. I had no doubt but what she had now

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  rendered ample proof to him that she was worth far more than the golden tarn

  disk he h ad arrogantly paid for her. If she had not yet done so, I did not

  doubt but what he, in the manner of the Gorean master, would see to it that she

  soon did.

  “You escaped from the city without incident?” I asked.

  “Yes,” said Boots, “and, later, so, too, did Andronicus, with Chino, Lecchio,

  and Petrucchio.”

  “Where is Andronicus?” I asked. “Where is Petrucchio?”

  “they are at the side of the wagon, over there,” said Boots. The wagons of the

  troupe of Boots Tarsk-Bit were drawn up on the height of a hill, amidst trees,

  overlooking Thassa. It was now morning. We could see Brundisium in the distance.

  “They are all right, are they not?” I asked. I had not seen them. They had not

  come to greet me.

  “Well,” said Boots, evasively.

  I hurried about the wagons, until I came to that place, near the edge of the

  trees, on a clifflike projection of the hill, rearing above Thassa, where was

  the wagon of Andronicus. There I was Petrucchio, lying propped up, amidst bags

  and blankets. A great bandage was wrapped about his head. He looked in worse

  condition than he had when he had experienced the thrust of Flaminius.

  Andronicus was near him.

  “Ho!” called Petrucchio, weakly, lifting his hand, greeting me.

  “Greetings,” said Andronicus.

  “Greetings, fellows,” I said.

  “We would have joined the others, coming forth to bid you welcome,” said

  Andronicus, “but Petrucchio is feeling a bit low today, and I am tending him.”

  “That is all right,” I said.

  “Took, we were discussing the movements of the head,” said Andronicus. “I

  believe I may have discovered a new one. Have you ever seen this?”

  “I do not think so,” I said, startled, “at least not very often.”

  “It is, at least, one not mentioned explicitly in the texts, such as those of

  Alamanius, Tan Sarto and Polimachus.”

  “If it should be accepted as genuine, and win accreditation, being entered into

  the catalogs,” said Petrucchio, “that would come out to one hundred and

  seventy-four. Although I myself am not strong on theory, I am very proud of

  Andronicus.”

  “We all are,” I said.

  “The theater is not a purely empirical discipline,” said Andronicus. “It

  proceeds by theory, too.”

  “I am sure of it,” I said. “Petrucchio, how are you?”

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  “Let a great pyre be built,” said Petrucchio.

  I looked carefully under the bandages.

  “Let it contain a hundred logs!” said Petrucchio. “No, a thousand!”

  “That is a very nasty bump,” I said, replacing the bandages, “but it is nothing

  serious.”

  “Oh?” asked Petrucchio.

  “Yes,” I said.

  “I will live?” inquired Petrucchio.

  “Yes,” I said.

  “I suppose it is just as well,” mused Petrucchio.

  “I think so,” I said.

  “You must live, dear friend,” averred Andronicus.

  “ Very well,” said Petrucchio, convinced.

  “Logs are very expensive,” said Lecchio.

  “How did Petrucchio receive this injury?” I asked. “Did he perhaps slip on the

  steps of your wagon?”

  “No,” said Andronicus. “he was struck, unexpectedly, from behind.”

  “And what craven sleen stuck such a blow?” I asked, angrily.

  “Well,” said Andronicus, “if it must be known, it was I.”

  “You?” I asked.

  “Yes,” he said. “He was preparing to set forth for Brundisium again, once more

  to rescue you.”

  “Well struck,” I commended Andronicus.

  “Thank you,” he said.

  “How did you escape form the city proceed?” inquired Lecchio.

  “Very well,” I said.

  “Splendid,” said Lecchio.

  “To be sure,” I said, “I did not realize the descent on the tarn wire, with the

  flanged wheel, would be that swift. I struck the wall of a building with great

  force.”

  “The most difficult part of the journey, of course,” said Lecchio, “would be the

  section where the tarn wire, from the lower roofs, stretches over to the wall,

  that section where you could not simply use gravity and the flanged wheel.”

  “Some might have found it so,” I admitted.

  “Fortunately,” said Lecchio, “it was a matter of only a hundred feet or so.”

  “A mere nothing,” I admitted.

  “Did anyone see you?” asked Lecchio.

  “I did hear a couple of fellows shouting,” I admitted.

  page 388

  “Did you resist the temptation to do a somersault on the wire for them?” he

  asked.
<
br />   “Yes,” I said.

  “It is probably just as well,” he said.

  “I think so,” I said.

  “I am pleased you did so well,” he said.

  “I fell off seven times,” I said. “Fortunately I managed to seize the wire each

  time. Finally I finished the journey hand over hand.”

  “You are probably not yet ready to do that sort of thing professionally,” he

  said.

  “No,” I said. “I do not think so.” I was pleased that I had not broken my neck.

  The descent from the wall, once I had reached it, was simple. I had looped

  coiled wire about a parapet projection and, protected by the leather gloves, had

  descended to the ground, some sixty feet below.

  “Did you hear what happened to Temenides, and his men?” asked Boots.

  “No,” I said.

  “They were found in the city, with their throats cut,” he said. “Apparently

  their murder was to have been blamed on us, as such a rumor seems to have been

  intentionally spread. But others, perhaps not privy to the plot, cleared our

  name, noting the papers recording our departure from the city, papers signed at

  an Ahn when Temenides and his men were still alive. We found this out through

  Andronicus. He learned it when he was coming back out of the city, with Chino

  and Lecchio, with Petrucchio as his supposed prisoner.”

  “I see,” I said. I recalled I had seen Belnar give orders to a fellow upon the

  departure of Temenides from the great hall. It had been their misfortune, it

  seemed, to have displeased him. He had, too, it seemed, intended to settle the

  blame for the projected murder on the company of Boots Tarsk-Bit. This stratagem

  would permit him not only to take action against plausible suspects, given the

  hostility between those of Ar and Cos, this perhaps diverting attention from he

  true murderers, those in the pay of the ubar, but would give him a convenient

  pretext for ridding himself of possibly dangerous strangers, strangers who

  might, sooner or later, inopportunely comment on the anomaly of one from Cos,

  Temenides, am ere player, seated at the high table in Brundisium. Belnar, of

  course, had not realized that the troupe of Boots Tarsk-Bit would not return to

  its quarters in the palace but, instead, would immediately flee the city.

  page 389

 

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