Players of Gor (20 page)

"Yes," I said.

"Wait!" she said.

"Yes," I said, turning.

"What will they do with me?" she asked.

"I do not know," I said.

"Belnar will not be pleased," she said. "In Brundisium we

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do not look lightly on failure. AT the least I shall be considerably reduced in rank. I will be denied the use of footwear. My pretty clothes will be taken away. I will be permitted only plain robes, and shortened so that my calves may be seen by men. I may even be forced to go publicly face-stripped. I may even be expelled from the palace. It could even mean the collar for me!"

I wondered if she were truly of the household of the palace. If so, perhaps this Belnar might be a resident of the palace. Perhaps he was an official or minister of some sort in the government of Brundisium. It did not seem to me likely that he would be the Ubar of Brundisium. So important a personage as a Ubar would not be likely to have much of an interest in a captain of Port Kar. On the other hand, I supposed it was possible. He might, I supposed, be both a Ubar and an agent of Priest-Kings, or of Kurii. If he were indeed so prominent then it seemed to me more likely that he might serve Kurii than Priest-Kings. The Priest-Kings, at least on the whole, it seemed to me, seldom picked prominent, conspicuous personages for their agents. Samos had been in their service before he had become the first captain in the Council of Captains in Port Kar. Perhaps then Flaminius and the Lady Yanina, and those associated with them, did serve Kurii.

"I see then," I said, "that you will have much to think about while awaiting the arrival of Flaminius."

""Flaminius!" she laughed bitterly. "Dear Flaminius! He will shed few tears, I assure you, over my plight!"

"That would be my impression," I said.

"He will find my downfall amusing, relishing it," she said.

"Perhaps if your punishment is enslavement," I said, "you might aspire to be one of his girls."

"Perhaps," she said, bitterly.

"He seems the sort of man who would know how to make a woman crawl beneath his whip," I said.

"That, too, is my understanding," she said. "Wait! Wait!"

But I had then withdrawn from the inn of Ragnar. Then I was making my way back to her camp.

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6
     
I Renew an Acquaintance; I Am Considering Venturing to Brundisium

 
"Disgusting! Disgusting!" cried the free woman, one veiled and wearing the robes of the scribes, standing in the audience. "Pull down your skirt, you slave, you brazen hussy!"

"Pray, do withdraw, noble sir, for you surprise me unawares, and of necessity I must improvise some veiling, lest my features be disclosed," cried the girl upon the stage, Boots Tarsk-Bit's current Brigella. I had seen her a few days earlier in Port Kar.

"Pull down your skirt, slut!" cried the free woman in the audience.

"Be quiet," said a free man to the woman. "It is only a play."

"Be silent yourself!" she cried back at him.

"Would that you were a slave," he growled. "You would pay richly for your impertinence."

"I am not a slave," she said.

"Obviously," he said.

"And I shall never be a slave," she said.

"Do not be too sure of that," he said.

"Beast," she said.

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"I wonder if you would be any good chained in a tent," he said.

"Monster!" she said.

"Let us observe the drama," suggested another fellow.

"Though I be impoverished and am clad in rags, in naught but the meanness of tatters," said the Brigella to Boots Tarsk-Bit, he on the stage with her, he in the guise of a pompous, puffing, lecherous merchant, "know, and know well, noble sir, that I am a free woman!"

This announcement, predictably, was met with guffaws of laughter from the audience.

"Take the scarf from about her throat!" hooted a ;man. "See if there is not a steel collar beneath it!" On Gor, as I have perhaps mentioned, most of the actresses are slaves. In serious drama or more sophisticated comedy, when women are permitted roles within it, the female roles usually being played by men, and the females are salves, their collars are sometimes removed. Before this is done, however, usually a steel bracelet or anklet, locked, which they cannot remove, is placed on them. In this way, they continue, helplessly, to wear some token of bondage. This facilitates, in any possible dispute or uncertainty as to their status or condition, a clear determination in the matter, by anyone, of course, but in particular by guardsmen or magistrates, or otherwise duly authorized authorities.

This custom tends to prevent inconvenience and possible embarrassment, for example, the binding of the woman and the remanding of her to the attention of free females, that she may be stripped and her body examined for the presence of slave marks. In such an event, incidentally, it behooves the girl to swiftly and openly confess her bondage. Free women despise slaves. They tend to treat them with great cruelty and viciousness in general, and, in particular, they are not likely to be pleasant with one who has been so bold as to commit the heinous crime of impersonating one of them. There is no difficulty in locating or recognizing the slave mark in a girl's body. It, though small and tasteful, if prominent in her flesh. It is easily located, perfectly legible and totally unmistakable. It serves its identificatory purposes well. It, in effect, is part of her. It is in her hide.

Normally when a girl plays upon the stage, even if she is nude, the brand is not covered. Usually, if she is playing the role of a free woman it is simply "not see," so to speak, being ignored by the audience, in virtue of a Gorean theatrical convention. If a great deal is being made of the freedom of the woman in the play, as is not unusual in many dramas and farces,

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the brand is sometimes covered, as with a small, circular adhesive patch. The removal of this patch, conjoined perhaps with a collaring, for example, may then suggest that the female has now been suitably enslaved. The covering of the brand, thereby suggesting that for the purposes of the play and the role it does not exist, or does not yet exist, is another Gorean theatrical convention.

There are many such conventions. Carrying a tarn goad and moving about the stage in a certain manner suggests that one is riding a tarn; a kaiila crop, or kaiila goad, and a change of gait suggests that one is riding a kaiila; a branch on the stage can stand for a forest or a bit of a wall for a city; standing on a box or small table can suggest that the hero is viewing matters from the summit of a mountain or from battlement; some sprinkled confetti can evoke a snow storm; a walk about the stage may indicate a long journey, of thousands of pasangs; some crossed poles and a silken hanging can indicate a throne room or the tent of a general; a banner carried behind a "general" can indicate that he has a thousand men at his back; a black cloak indicates the character is invisible, and so on.

"Are you truly free?" inquired Boots Tarsk-Bit, with exaggerated incredulity, in the guise of the merchant, of his Brigella.

"Yes!" she cried, holding her skirt up about her face, it clenched n her small fists, to veil herself with it. There was laughter then, doubtless not only at the preposterousness of the situation but, too, at the incongruity of so obvious a slave, such a lovely Brigella, enunciating such a line.

"Boots puffed across the stage, as though to obtain a better vantage point.

"Tal, noble sir," she said.

"Tal, noble lady," said he.

"Is anything wrong?" she inquired.

"I would say that there is very little wrong, if anything," he said.

"Have you never seen a free woman before?" she asked.

"This farce is an insult to free women!" cried the free woman in the audience, she in the blue of the scribes.

"Have you never seen a free woman before?" repeated the Brigella.

"Generally I do not see so much of them," Boots admitted, as the merchant.

"I see," said the Brigella.

"Often not half so much," said Boots.

"Insulting!" cried the free woman.

"But I expect I see more of you than most," he said.

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"Insulting! Insulting!" cried the free woman.

"Are you dismayed that I do not receive you properly?" asked the Brigella.

"I should be pleased," Boots assured her, "if it were your intention to receive me at all, either properly or improperly."

"What lady could do otherwise?" she inquired.

"Indeed!" Boots cried enthusiastically.

"I mean, of course," she said, "that I apologize for having to veil myself so hastily, making such swift and resourceful use of whatever materials might be at hand."

"I effect nothing critical," he assured her.

"Then you do not think the less of me?" she asked.

"No, I admire you. I admire you!" he said, admiring her.

"And thus," she said, "do we free women show men our modesty."

"And you have a very lovely modesty," affirmed Boots, admiringly.

"Oh!" she cried, suddenly, as though in the most acute embarrassment, and, crouching down, hastily pulled her skirt down about her ankles.

"I thought you were a free woman," exclaimed Boots.

"I am!" she cried. "I am!"

"And you go face-stripped before a strange man?" he inquired.

"Oh!" she cried, miserably, leaping up, once more pulling her skirt up, high about her face, using it once more to conceal her features.

"Ah!" cried Boots, appreciatively.

"Oh!" she cried in misery, thrusting her skirt down as though in great embarrassment.

"Face-stripped!" cried Boots, as though scandalized.

Up went the skirt.

"Ah!" cried Boots. "Ah!"

"What is a poor girl to do!" cried the Brigella. "What is a poor girl to do!"

The skirt's hem, clutched in her small hands, she moaning with misery and frustration, leapt up and down, again and again, in ever-shortening cycles until she held it, frustratedly, between her bosom and throat. In this fashion, of course, to the amusement of most of the crowd, it concealed neither her "modesty," so to speak, nor her features.

It must be understood, of course, to fully appreciate what was going on, that the public exposure of the features of a free

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woman, particularly on of high caste, or with some pretense to position or status, is a socially serious matter in many Gorean localities. Indeed, in some cities an unveiled free woman is susceptible to being taken into custody by guardsmen, then to be veiled, by force if necessary, and publicly conducted back to her home. Indeed, in some cities she is marched back to her home stripped, except for the face veil which has been put on her. In these cases a crowd usually follows, to see to what home it is that she is to be returned. Repeated offenses in such a city usually result in the enslavement of the female. Such serious measures, of course, are seldom required to protect such familiar Gorean proprieties. Custom, by itself, normally suffices.

Social pressures, too, in various ways, contribute to the same end. An unveiled woman, for example, may find other women turning away from her in a market, perhaps with expressions of disgust. Indeed, she may not even be waited upon, or dealt with, in a market by a free woman unless she first kneels. It would not be unusual for her ., in a crowded place, to overhear remarks, perhaps whispers or sneers, of which she is the obvious object, such as "Shameless slut," "Brazen baggage," "As immodest as a slave," "I wonder who her master is," and "Put a collar on her!" And if she should attempt to confront or challenge her assailants, she will merely find such remarks repeated articulately and clearly to her face.

Slaves, incidentally, are commonly forbidden facial veiling. Their features are commonly kept naked, exposed fully to public view. In this way they may be looked upon by men, even casually, whenever and however they might be pleased to do so. That the Earth girl commonly thinks little of this exposure of her features, incidentally, is one of the many reasons that many Goreans think of her as a natural slave. For a Gorean girl that she is now, suddenly, no longer entitled to facial veiling, unless it pleases the master to grant it to her, is one of the most fearful and significant aspects of her transition into bondage. Her features, in all their sensitivity and beauty, so intimate, personal and private to her, so revelatory of her deepest and most secret thoughts, feelings and emotions, are now exposed to public view, to be looked upon, and read, by whomsoever may be pleased to do so.

It is interesting to note that even some Earth girls on Gor, after a short while, tend to become sensitive to this sort of thing. It is usually interpreted by both sorts of girls, then, for a time, as a part of the "shame" of the collar. In a little longer while, of course, neither sort of girl, the Gorean girl or the Earth girl now

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sensitive to the subtler implications of facial exposure, thinks anything more about it, or at least not normally. Both have now learned that they are now naught but slaves, and that that is all there is to it. No longer do they aspire to the prerogatives of the free woman. Their exposure, their human legibility, so to speak, like their obedience, service, love and discipline, is part of their condition. In a sense they find it liberating. It frees them from the temptations of deceit, pretense and restraint. Seldom now do they think, among themselves, of the "shame" of the collar. Rather now, in their place in the perfection of nature, yielded fully, helplessly, choicelessly, if you like, submitted at the feet of men, their deepest sexuality and needs recognized, attended to and fulfilled, they tend to think of its joy. No longer do they aspire to the privileges and prerogatives of the free woman; let her continue to live in her house of inhibition and convention; let her have her frigidities, jealousies and shams; they have found something a thousand times more precious, their meaning, their significance, their happiness, their joy, their fulfillments, their collars.