by John Norman
"Be silent, Slave," said I. Angrily I brushed her hand from my shoulder. She drew back her hand swiftly, as though she had not known it had lain there. The singer had now finished his song.
"Singer," called I to him, "is there truly a man such as Tarl of Bristol?" The singer turned his head to me, puzzled. "I do not know," he said. "Perhaps it is only a song."
I laughed.
I extended the paga goblet to Telima and, again, she filled it.
I rose to my feet, lifting the goblet, and my retainers, as well, rose to their feet, lifting their goblets.
"There is gold and steel!" I said.
"Gold and steel!" cried my retainers.
We drank.
"And song," said the blind singer.
The room was quiet.
I looked upon the singer. "Yes," I said, lifting my goblet to him, "and songs." There was a cry of pleasure from my retainers, and again we drank.
When again I sat down I said to the serving slaves, "Feast the singer well," and then I turned to Luma, slave and accountant of my house, braceleted and chained at the end of the long table, and said to her, "Tomorrow, the singer, before he is sent on his way, is to be given a cap of gold."
"Yes Master," said the girl.
"Thank you, Captain!" cried the singer.
My retainers cried out with pleasure at my generosity, many of them striking their left shoulders with their right fists in Gorean applause.
Two slave girls helped the singer from the stool on which he had sat and conducted him to a table in a far corner of the room.
I drank more paga.
I was furious.
Tarl of Bristol lived only in songs. There was on such man. There were, in the end, only gold and steel, and perhaps the bodies of women, and perhaps songs, the meaningless noises that might sometimes be heard in the mouths of the blind. Again I was Bosk, from the marshes, Pirate, Admiral of Port Kar.
I fingered the golden medallion with the lateen-rigged tarn ship, and the initials of the Council of Captains of Port Kar in its half-curve beneath it. "Sandra!" I called. "Send for Sandra!"
There were cheers from the tables.
I looked about. It was indeed a feast of victory. I was only angered that Midice was not present with me. She had felt ill, and had begged to remain in my quarters, which leave I had given her. Tab, too, was not present.
Then there was a rustle of slave bells and Sandra, the dancing girl of Port Kar, whom I had first seen in a Paga tavern, and had purchased, primarily for my men, stood before me, her master.
I looked on her with amusement.
How desperate she was to please me.
She wanted to be first girl, but I had kept her primarily with my men. Beautiful, dark-haired, slender, marvelously-legged Midice was, in my house, first girl, and my favored slave. As Tab was my first Captain.
But yet Sandra was of interest.
She had high cheekbones, and flashing black eyes, and coal-black hair, now worn high, pinned, over her head. She stood wrapped in an opaque sheet of shimmering yellow silk. As she had approached me I had heard the bells which had been locked on her ankles and wrists, and hung pendant from her collar.
It would not hurt, I thought, for Midice to have a bit of competion. And so I smiled upon Sandra.
She looked at me, eagerness and pleasure transfusing her features.
"You may dance, Slave," I told her.
It was to be the dance of the six thongs.
She slipped the silk from her and knelt before the great table and chair, between the other tables, dropping her head. She wore five pieces of metal, her collar and locked rings on her wrists and ankles. Slave bells were attached to the collar and the rings. She lifted her head, and regarded me. The musicians, to one side, began to play. Six of my men, each with a length of binding fiber, approached her. She held her arms down, and a bit to the sides. The ends of six lengths of binding fiber, like slave snares, were fastened on her, one for each wrist and ankle, and two about her waist; the men, then, each holding the free end of a length of fiber, stood about her, some six or eight feet from her, three on a side. She was thus imprisoned among them, each holding a thong that bound her.
I glanced to Thura. I recalled that she had been caught in capture loops on the rence island, ot unlike the two now about Sandra's waist. Thura was watching with eagerness.
So, too, were all.
Sandra then, luxuriously, catlike, like a woman awakening, stretched her arms. There was laughter.
It was as though she did not know herself bound.
When she went to draw her arms back to her body there was just the briefest instant in which she could not do so, and she frowned looked annoyed, puzzled, and then was permitted to move as she wished.
I laughed.
She was superb.
Then, still kneeling, she raised her hand, head back, insolently to her hair, to remove from it one of the ornate pins, its head carved from the horn of a kailiauk, that bound it.
Again a thong, this time that on her right wrist, prohibited, but only for an instant, the movement, but inches from her hair.
She frowned. There was laughter.
At last, sometimes immediately permitted, sometimes not, she had removed the pins from her hair. Her hair was beautiful, rich, long and black. As she knelt, it fell back to her ankles.
Then, with her hands, she lifted the hair again back over her head, and then, suddenly, her hands, by the thongs were pulled apart and her hair fell again loose and rich over her body.
Now, angrily, struggling, she fought to lift her hair, again but the thongs, holding apart her hands, did not permit her to do so. She fought them. The thongs would permit her only to wear her hair loosely.
Then, as though in terror and fury, as though she now first understood herself in the snares of a slave, she leaped to her feet, fighting, to the music, the thongs.
The dancing girls of Port Kar, I told myself, are the best on all Gor. Dar and golden, shimmering, crying out, stamping, she danced, her thonged beauty incandescent in the light of the torches and frenzy of the slave bells. She turned and twisted and leaped, and sometimes seemed almost free, but was always, by the dark thongs, held complete prisoner. Sometimes she would rush upon one man or another, but the others would not permit her to reach him, keeping her always beautiful female slave snared in her web of thongs. She writhed and cried out, trying to force the thongs from her body, but could not do so.
At last, bit by bit, as her fear and terror mounted, the men, fist by fist, took up the slack in the thongs that tethered her, until suddenly, they swiftly bound her hand and foot and lifted her over their heads, captured female slave, displaying her bound arched body to the tables.
There were cries of pleasure from the tables, and much striking of the right fist on the left shoulder.
She had been truely superb.
Then the men carried her before my table and held her bound before me. "A slave," said one.
"Yes," cried the girl, "slave!"
The music finished with a clash.
The applause and cries were wild and loud.
I was much pleased.
"Cut her loose," I told the men.
The did so and, swiftly, like a cat, the girl ran to my chair, and knelt at my feet. She looked up, streaked with sweat, breathing heavily, her eyes shining. "Your performance was not without interest," I said to her.
She put her cheek to my knee.
"Ka-la-na!" I called.
A cup was brought. And I took her by the hair and held back her head, pouring the wine down her throat, some of it running down her face and body under the slave collar and its bells.
She looked up at me, her mouth stained with wine. "Did I please you?" she asked. "Yes," I said.
"Do not send me back to your men," said begged. "Keep Sandra for yourself." "We shall see," I said.
"Sandra wants much to please Master," she said.
Wily wench, I thought.
"Y
ou used Sandra only once," pouted the girl. "It is not fair." She looked up at me. "Sandra is better than Midice," she said.
"Midice," I said, "is very good."
"Sandra is better," wheedled the girl. "Try Sandra and see."
"Perhaps," I said. I gave her head a rough shake and permitted her to remain kneeling at the arm of my chair. I saw other slave girls, serving at the tables, cast looks of hatred and jealousy on her. Like a satisfied cat, she knelt beside my chair.
"The gold, Captain," said one of my treasure guards.
I had arranged a surprise for my retainers on this night of feasting and victory.
He lifted, heavily, to the dais on which my chair and talbe sat a heavy leather sack filled with golden tarn disks of double weight, of Cos and Tyros, of Ar and Port Kar, even of distant Thentis and remote Turia, far to the south. He placed the sack beside my great chair. Few, saving those immediately near me, saw it there.
"Send for the slave girl from Tyros!" I called.
There was laughter from the tables.
I held out my paga goblet, but it was not filled. I looked about, angrily. I called out to a passing slave girl. "Wher is the slave Telima?" I demanded. "She was here but a moment ago," said a slave girl.
"She went to the kitchens," said another.
I had not given her permission to leave.
"I will serve you paga," said Sandra.
"No," I said, holding the paga goblet away from her. I addressed myself to one of the slave girls. "Have Telima beaten," I said, "and sent to my side. I would be served."
"Yes Master," said the girl, speeding away.
Sandra looked down, angrily, pouting.
"Do not fret," I said to her, "or I shall have you beaten as well." "It is only, Master," said she, "that I wish to serve you."
I laughed. She was indeed a wily wench.
"Paga?" I asked.
She looked up at me, suddenly, her eyes bright, her lips slightly parted. "No," she said, "wine."
"I see," I said.
There was a rustle of chain and the Lady Vivina, to the pleasure of the tables, was conducted before me.
I heard a movement at my side and saw that Telima now stood again where she had before. There were tears in her eyes. I did not doubt taht she now had four or five welts on her back from the switch of the kitchen master. The thin rep-cloth tunic provides little protection from the kitchen master's switch. I held out the paga goblet, and she refilled it.
I looked upon the Lady Vivina.
All attention was upon her. Even several of the slaves, about the edges of the room, behind the tables, had gathered to look upon her. I saw the slave boy, Fish, among them.
I regarded the girl before me. She had been chief among my prizes.
This afternoon I had presented her, with her maidens, in the chains of slave girls, together with portions of the treasures of the treasure fleet, and accountings of the balance thereof, before the Council of Captains of Port Kar. They had been beautiful, in silver throat coffle, their wrists bound behind their backs in golden slave bracelets, kneeling as pleasure slaves among the jewels, the piled gold, and the heaps of silk and kegs of spices. She who was to have been the Ubara of Cos was in the city of Port Kar only booty.
"Greetings Lady Vivina," said I to her.
"Is that the name you will choose to know me by?" she asked.
This afternoon, after returning from the Coucil of Captains, I had had her marked and collared.
Now, aside from her collar and brand, standing before me, she wore only slave bracelets.
She was very beautiful.
"Remove the bracelets," I told the man who had conducted her before me. He did so.
"Unbind her hair," I said.
He did so, and her hair fell about her shoulders, and there was a cry of pleasure from my men.
"Kneel," I told her.
She did so.
"You are Vina," I told her.
She dropped her head, acknowledging the name I had given her. Then she looked up. "I congratulate Master," said she. "It is an excellent name for a slave girl."
"Who are you?" I asked.
"I am Vina," she said.
"What are you?" I asked.
"Slave," she said.
"What are your duties, Slave?" I asked.
"Master has not yet informed me," she said.
I looked upon her. I had also had her maidens marked and collared, following the meeting of the Council of Captains. They were now chained within my holding. I had not yet decided on their dispostion. Perhaps I should distribute them among my officers, or give them to my men. They might serve as prizes in games or as inducements to serve me better, that one might be received as gift in token of good service. Also I had toyed with the idea of opening a paga tavern in the center of the city, the most opulent in Port Kar, perhaps, called the Tavern of the Forty Maidens. There were few in Port Kar who would not be eager to patronize such as as establishment, that they might be served by the high-born beauties of Tyros.
But now my attention was on the girl Vina, once the Lady Vivina, once to have been the Ubara of Cos, now only female slave in the house of Bosk, he of Port Kar.
"What garments shall be brought for you?" I asked.
She looked up at me.
"Shall it be the tunic of a house slave?" I asked.
She said nothing.
"Or," I asked, "should I call for the bells and the silk, and the perfumes, of a pleasure slave?"
She smiled. "I assume," she said icily, "that I will be used as a pleasure slave."
From the sack at the side of my chair, that filled muchly with gold, I drew forth a small piece of folded, wadded cloth. I threw it to the girl. She caught it, and looked at it. "No! she cried.
"Put it on," I told her.
"No, no!" she cried in fury, leaping to her feet, holding the piece of cloth. She turned to flee, but was ringed by my men. She turned again to face me, holding the cloth. "No!" she said in rage, "No!"
"Put it on," I told her.
Furiously she drew on the garment.
There was great laughter from the tables.
The Lady Vivina stood before me clad in the garment of a Kettle Slave. "In Cos," I told her, "you would have been Ubara. In my house you will be Kettle Slave."
Enraged, red with shame, her fists clenched, in the brief garment of the Kettle Slave, the Lady Vivina stood before us.
The room was convulsed with laughter.
"Kitchen Master!" I called.
"Here, Captain!" cried Tellius, from behind the tables.
"Come here!" I called.
The man approached the table.
"Here," I told him, gesturing to the girl, "is a new girl for the kitchens." He laughed, and walked about her, his switch in his hand. "She is a beauty," he said.
"See that she is worked well," I said.
"She will be," he promised me.
The Lady Vivina looked on me with fury.
"Fish!" I called. "Where is the slave boy Fish!"
"Here!" he cried, and came forward, from behind the tables, where, with other slaves, for some time, he had been watching what had been going on. I gestured to the girl. "Do you find this slave pleasing?" I asked. He looked at me, puzzled.
"Yes," he said.
"Good," said I. Then I turned to the girl. "You please the slave boy Fish," I said to her. "Therefore your use will be his."
"No!" she cried. "No! No!"
"The use of her," I told the boy, "is yours."
"No!" she cried. "No! No! No! No!"
She threw herself to her knees before me, weeping, extending her arms. "He is only a slave," she wept. "I was to have been Ubara! Ubara!"
"Your use is his," I said.
She held her face in her hands, bent over, weeping.
There was much laughter in the room. I looked about, well pleased. Of those I looked upon, only Luma did not laugh. There were tears in her eyes. This irritated me. Tomorrow, I thought, I will hav
e her beaten.
Sandra, at my side, was laughing merrily. I gave her head a rough shake. She began to kiss my left arm, and I, with my right hand, brushed her away. But in a moment she again held her cheek to my left arm.
The boy, Fish, was looking on the girl, Vina, not without compassion. They were both young. He was perhaps seventeeen, she perhaps fifteen or sixteen. Then he reached down and lifted her to her feet, turning her to face him.
"I am Fish," he said.
"You are only a slave boy!" she cried.
She would not meet his eyes.
He took her by the collar and turned it slightly upward in his large hands, forcing her head up to face his.
"Who are you?" he asked.
"I am the Lady Vivina of Kasra!" she cried.
"No," he said, "you are a slave."
"No!" she said, shaking her head.
"Yes," he said, "and I, too, am a slave."
And then, to our surprise, holding her head in his hands, he kissed her gently on the lips.
She looked at him, tears in her eyes.
Raised as she had been, in the sequestered quarters of high-born women in palace of Tyros in Kasra, I supposed it was perhaps the first time that the lips of a man had touched hers. Doubtless she had expected to receieve that kiss standing in the swirling love silks of the Free Companion, beneath golden love lamps, beside the couch of the Ubar of Cos; but it was not in the white, marbled palace of the Ubar of Cos that that kiss was to take place; and it was not to be receieved as a Ubara from the lips of a Ubar; that kiss wa to be taken place in Port Kar, in the holding of her enemies, under barbaric torchlight, before the table of her master; and she was not to wear the love silks of a Free Companion and Ubara but the brief, wretched garment of a Kettle Slave, and a collar that proclaimed her slave girl; and the lips would be those of a slave which touched hers, those themselves of a slave.
