Raiders of Gor (36 page)

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 have 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.

To our surprise she had not resisted the boy’s kiss.

He held her by the arms. “I am a slave,” he said.

To our astonishment, then she, in all her friendlessness, in all her misery and

loneliness, lifted her lips to his, with great timidity, that he might, should

it please him to do so, again touch them.

Again he gently kissed her.

“I, too, am a slave,” she said. “My name is Vina.”

“You are worthy,” he said, holding her head in his hands, “to be a Ubara.”

“And you,” she whispered, “to be a Ubar.”

“I think you will find,” I told her, “the arms of the boy Fish more welcome,

though on a mat of a slave, than the arms of gross Lurius, on the furs of the

Ubar’s couch.”

She looked at me, tears in her eyes.

I spoke to the kitchen master. “At night,” I said, “chain them together.”

“A single blanket?” he asked.

“Yes,” I told him.

The girl collasped weeping, but Fish, with great gentleness lifted her in his

arms and carried her from the hall.

I laughed.

And there was great laughter.

How rich a joke it was, to have enslaved the girl who would have been Ubara of

Cos, to have put her to work in my kitchens, to have given the use of her to a

mere slave boy! This story would soon be told in all the ports of Thassa and all

the cities of Gor! How shamed would be Tyros and Cos, enemies of my city, Port

Kar! How delicious is the defeat of the enemies! How glorious is power, success,

triumph!

I reached drunkenly into the bag of gold beside my chair and grabbed up handfuls

flinging them about the room. I stood and threw about me showers of the tarn

disks of Ar, of Tyros, of Cos, Thentis, Turia and Port Kar! Men scrambled wildly

laughing and fighting for the coins. Each was of double weight!

“Paga!” I cried and held back the goblet and Telima filled it.

I regretted only that Midice and Tab were not with me to share my trimuph.

I stood drunkenly, holding to the table. I spilled paga. “Paga!” I cried, and

Telima again filled the goblet. I drank again. And ten, again, wildly, shouting,

crying out, I threw gold to all the corners of the room, laughing as the men

fought and leaped to seize it.

I drank and then threw more coins and more coins about the room.

There was laughter and delighted cries.

“Hail Bosk!” I heard. “Hail Bosk, Admiral of Port Kar!”

I threw more gold wildly about. I drank again, and again. “Yes,” I cried. “Hail

Bosk!”

“Hail Bosk!” they cried. “Hail Bosk, Admiral of Port Kar!”

“Yes,” I cried. “Hail Bosk! Hail, Bosk, Admiral of Port Kar! Hail Bosk, Admiral

of Port Kar!”

I heard a cry, as of fear, from my right, and I turned to stare drunkenly toward

the end of the table. There, Luma, chained at the table, in her bracelets, was

looking at me. On her face there was a look of horror.

“Your face,” she cried. “Your face!”

I looked at her, puzzled.

The room was suddenly quiet.

“No,” she said, suddenly, shaking her head. “It is gone now.”

“What is wrong?” I asked her.

“Your face,” she said.

“What of it?” I asked.

“It is nothing,” she said, looking down.

“What of it!” I demanded.

“For an instant,” she said, “I thought-I thought it was the face of Surbus.”

I cried out with rage and seized the great table, flinging it, scattering dishes

and paga, from the dias. Thura and Ula screamed. Sandra screamed, darting away,

her hands before her, with an incongruous clash of slave bells. Luma, fastened

by the neck to the table, was jerked from the dais, and thrown over the table to

the tiles of the hall. Slave girls fled from the room, screaming.

Enraged I took the bag of gold, what was left of it, and hurled it out into the

hall, spilling a rain of golden tarn disks before it struck the tiles.

Then, furious, I turned about and, stumbling, left the hall.

“Admiral!” I heard behind me. “Admiral!”

I clutched the medallion about my neck, with its tarn ship and the initials of

the Council of Captains.

Stumbling, crying out in rage, I staggered toward my quarters.

I could hear the consternation behind me.

In fury, I rushed on, sometimes falling, sometimes striking against the walls.

Then I burst open the doors of my quarters.

Midice and Tab leaped apart.

I howled with rage and turned about striking the walls with my fists and then,

throwing off my cloak, spun weeping to face them, in the same instant drawing my