Players of Gor (63 page)

"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 drew 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 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