Players of Gor

3 Lady Yanina

"That one," she had said. "Have him brought to my tent."

"Go in," said the guard.

I lowered my head and entered the tent. I moved my hands upon my wrists. They were ringed and sore where the manacles, too closely fitted, had clasped them. I straightened my body.

The tent was one of rich cloths, supported by five poles. It was rich with hangings and, about its interior circumference, furnished with suitable appointments, including vessels, cushions, a low inlaid table, cases and trunks. These, with the various materials for the tent, and its poles, had been disembarked from a large, high-wheeled wagon. I, with several others, in harness, some others chained by the neck behind, had drawn this wagon for the past two days.

I, and others, had awakened to the blows of spear butts, three days ago.

"On your knees," we had been told, "head to the dirt! You are in the presence of your Mistress!"

We had struggled to our knees. Our hands were namacled behind our backs. There seemed the stench of fish on us. We were connected by the neck, by collars and chains.

I had been aware of someone stopping before me.

"Lift your head," had said a woman's voice.

I looked up. She was veiled, and clad, too, in robes of concealment, sumptuous robes which seemed incongruous in the open terrain, the grassy field, in which I found myself. I looked about, seeing what guards I could. I saw five. I felt her tharlarion quirt at the side of my face, indicating I should keep my head forward. Then it pressed up, under my chin. I lifted my head higher, obedient to the quirt, looking up at her. "That is better," she said. She looked at me. "It seems I have won the game of favors," she said.

"At least for now," I said.

"In the distribution of my favors in the piazza in Port Kar," she said, "I had two major criteria in mind. Would you like to know what they were?"

"Of course," I said.

"First," she said, "the males must be large and strong. They must be suitable for inclusion in a work chain. They must be capable, with their bestial strength, of sustaining indefinitely so onerous a servitude."

"And what is your second criterion," I asked, "that which they must also meet, what is that?"

"I must find them, personally, of some sexual interest," she said.

"I see," I said.

"We are going to get on splendidly, aren't we?" she asked.

"On whose terms?" I asked.

"On mine," she said.

"I do not know," I said.

"Do you know how to obey?" she asked.

"Yes," I said.

"Then I am sure we will get on splendidly-on my terms," she said.

"Perhaps," I said.

She withdrew the quirt from beneath my chin. "Put your head down," she said, "-to the dirt."

I did so. And, in a moment, she had continued on down the line, pausing her and there to order another fellow to lift his head, to be commanded and interrogated, and then to resume a posture of abject obeisance.

"Approach," she said.

Within the tent there was an inner sanctum, or private area, formed of diaphanous, white hangings. It was rather like a small tent, or walled room, within the larger tent. It was within this area that I could see her, vaguely. There was a tiny lamp on a stand, near her, to one side. She was sitting on a curule chair.

"approach," she invited me.

I brushed back the hangings and let them fall closed behind me. I then stood before her, a few feet away, within the sanctum.

On the floor there were cushions and silk. I stood straight, my arms folded, surveying her.

I could detect perfume.

"You have my permission to kneel," she said.

I regarded her.

"There are guards, just outside," she said.

I knelt. I put my hands on my thighs.

"You have broad shoulders," she said, "a narrow waist. You have strong thighs. Your hands are large and strong."

I said nothing.

"You are a large, strong, handsome-looking fellow," she said, "very animal-like. If you were not in my total power, I might be uneasy."

"You have me at a disadvantage," I said, "as you are veiled, and fully clothed."

"At least you no longer smell of fish," she said.

"No," I said.

"That is how you and your fellows were smuggled out of Port Kar," she said. "We took you, one by one, drugged, to the boat. There we stripped and chained you. You were each packed in a barrel with salted parsit fish, and over your heads these barrels had a false bottom, which was covered with more parsit fish. Tiny holes in the upper sides of the barrels would permit you to breathe. The barrels were then sealed."

"The captures were smoothly and cleverly effectuated." I observed.

"Thank you," she said.

"Are you a female slaver?" I asked.

"No," she laughed, "though I think I might have been successful in such a profession."

Most female slavers, incidentally, are not involved in field captures. It is, one the whole, too dangerous for them. Too, there is always the danger that they might be added to the catch by their men. Most female slavers, accordingly, are established in cities, where they own or manage houses. There they buy and sell slaves, board or rent them, train, them, and so on. Statistically, there are very few female slavers. Most Gorean women tend to be attractive, and most Gorean men tend to be strong, for example. Accordingly, in a business such as slaving it is not unusual that the female slaver sooner or later, in one way or another finds the collar on her own throat. That, then, she then helplessly under the whip like any other female, is that.

"I am rather," she said, "only the humble mistress of a small work chain."

"Surely it is unusual for an individual in your line of work to procure laborers as you did," I said.

"It is cheaper than buying them," she said.

"That is doubtless true," I admitted. I did not believe this woman was actually the mistress of a work chain. There were many reasons for this. First, there are very few women involved in such things. Secondly, she did not seem skilled in the handling of men. For example, in our present situation, I could reach her and kill her or capture her and make use of her to effect a probable escape. Thirdly, she did not seem to have the hardiness of a woman likely to be efficient in such a post. Fourthly, the tent did not suggest the tastes or appointments of such a woman. Fifthly, her garmentry revealed clearly a vanity and taste for sumptuous luxury, a penchant for self-indulgence and ostentatious elegance, also unlikely to be characteristic in such a woman. The number of guards on hand, too, which was five, was really too small to manage a normal work gang, not because of the ratios involved, but because of the necessity of maintaining night watches.Similarly, she really had no work gang but the fifteen men she had picked up in Port Kar. A work gang usually consists of fifty to one hundred men, and some contain as many as five hundred or a thousand men. If she were really the mistress of a work gang we presumably would not have constituted the work gang but would merely have been added to it. Even more obviously we did not have the equipment of a word gang with us, the implements and tools pertinent to the work of such gangs, such as levers, picks, hammers and shovels.

"What was used to drug us?" I asked.

"Tassa powder," she said. "I put enough of it in the botas of my men to stun a kailiauk."

"How long were we unconscious?" I asked.

"With tube feedings, of broth mixed with tassa, five days," she said.

"Where are we?" I asked. I knew. I wished to see what she would say.

"I think it more amusing to keep you in ignorance," she said.

"As you wish," I said. From between the location of our camp, indeed, from our chain line, between two stakes, we could see the Sardar Mountains in the distance. They were unmistakable. I assumed this woman must be an agent of Priest-Kings. Yet she did not seem to recognize me. Too, I was only one of fifteen men captured. If she was an agent of Priest-Kings, it did not seem, ironically enough, that she realized who it was, so to speak, who was on her chain.

That we were so near the Sardar, incidentally, after a presumed five days of unconsciousness, followed by two days of travel on foot, drawing her wagon, further suggested that she was not likely, really, to be the mistress of a work chain. We could not have come this far from Port Kar in so short a time, presumably, if we had not been brought most of the way by tarn, probably in tarn baskets. Common laborers are seldom transported in this fashion. But then, two days ago, we had been awakened, and had then proceeded on foot. This was presumably to make it appear, at least in the vicinity of the Sardar, that we were truly a work chain. The woman, I assumed, must be working for Priest-Kings. On the other hand, it did not seem that she knew who I was. Perhaps, then, she was not an agent of Priest-Kings. Perhaps she was a slaver, of sorts, after all, and intended to sell us, her catch, at the Fair of En'Kara. But then, if that were so, I wondered why she was having recourse to this elaborate pretense of being merely the mistress of a common work chain. I decided not to seize her, at least not yet.

"What is your name?" she asked.

"I have been called various things," I said, "at different times, in different places."

"Ah, yes," she said, "I know you fellows of Port Kar. You are all rogues, all pirates, thieves and slavers. I think I shall call you-Brinlar."

"And how shall I address you?" I asked.

"As 'Mistress, " she said.

"How is it that you made your strike in Port Kar?" I asked.

"I was in Port Kar on business," she said, "and, with the carnival, matters were convenient."

"I had thought you might be of Tyros or Cos," I said. Those two island ubarates were at war with Port Kar.

"No," she said.

I was now more sure than ever that she was of the party of Priest-Kings.

"To be sure," she said, "my sympathies lie with Cos and Tyros, Thassa's foremost citadels of enlightenment and civilization. A certain amusing fittingness was thus manifested in my choice of a location for my predations, a choice fully vindicated, incidentally, by the catch of lovely males I acquired there." She looked at me. "Would you like a rag for your loins?" she asked.

"Whatever you wish," I said.

She laughed.

"Am I, and my fellows, to be enslaved?" I asked.

"That would certainly seem to be in order, would it not?" she asked.

"Of course," I said.

"Somewhere, sometime, I would suppose," she said, "at my convenience, at a site of my choosing."

"Of course," I said.

She smiled.

"What, then, afterwards, is to be our fate?" I asked.

"Perhaps I will sell you then, somewhere," she said, "perhaps even at the Fair of En'Kara."

"I see," I said. This confirmed my conjecture that we were not truly intended to be kept as members of a work chain. She presumably had a rendezvous to keep at the fair. Her rendezvous kept, and her cover still intact, but then no longer needed, she could dispose of us in the En'Kara markets.

"You and your fellows remain legally free, of course," she said, "though totally in my power, as complete captives, until a sign of bondage is burned into your pretty hides, or you are appropriately collared, or otherwise legally enslaved."

"I understand," I said.

"Do you recall the two major criteria I used in selecting my captures in the piazza?" she asked.

"You wanted strong, large fellows, as I recall," I said, "suitable for inclusion in a work chain."

"Yes," she said. "Do you recall the other criterion?"

I was silent.

"It was," she said, "that I must, personally, find them of some sexual interest."

"Yes," I said.

"Spread your knees," she said.

I did so.

"Excellent, Brinlar," she said, "indeed, excellent."

I did not speak.

"How does it feel to be a free man, but one who is in the total power of a woman?" she asked.

I shrugged. I did not really regard myself as being totally in her power.

"Am I beautiful?" she asked.

"I do not know," I said.

"But surely you men conjecture about such matters," she said.

"I would suppose you might be beautiful," I said. "There seem the suggestions of the lineaments of a beautiful woman, particularly as you have belted and arranged them, beneath your garments."

"I like pretty clothes," she said, "and I wear them well."

"Doubtless you would be even more beautiful in the rag of a slave, or naked in a collar," I said.

"Bold fellow," she said. But I could see she was pleased. All women are curious to know how beautiful they might be as slaves. This is because all of them, in their heart, are slaves.

She regarded me for a time, not speaking. I knelt there, knees spread. She seemed in no hurry to disclose her will with respect to me. Her eyes roved me, glistening.

"Are you not curious to know why you were brought to my tent?" she asked.

"Mistress has not yet explained it to me," I said. My heart began to race. I feared she would now announce to me that she knew my true identity, that she was going to put me to her pleasure, and rape me, and then turn me over, a woman's catch, to the Sardar. It did not seem appropriate to me to attack her and perhaps kill her. She might be an agent of Priest-Kings. So, too, for all I knew, might be her men. I recalled the fellow in the booth, he in whom I had left his own knife, in the piazza at Port Kar.

"But surely you can guess," she said.

"Perhaps," I said.

"Spread your knees more widely," she said, coldly.

I did so.

"No perhaps you can guess," she said.

"Yes," I said.

"You seem relieved," she said, puzzled.

I shrugged. I was indeed relieved. She had again only been toying with me. It seemed clear to me now, as it had before, that she did not know who I was. The man in the booth, I recalled, had tried to kill me. Thus, if she had truly known my identity, she might, by now, have had me killed. That would have been easy enough to have done while I was drugged. Too, the nature of my capture did not suggest anything special about me. I had merely been one of fifteen brought into her chains.

"There is something else," she said.

"Oh?" I asked.

"I am interested in being assessed," she said.

"Assessed?" I asked.

"Yes, objectively," she said. "I have been curious about it for a long time.The richness of your garments in the piazza, the weight of your purse, suggests to me that you might have experience in such matters, that you had the means to be intimately familiar with the doing in markets, and so on."

I was silent.

"Let me remind you," she said, "that it is you who kneel before me, with your knees spread like an imbonded girl!"

"I understand," I said.

Her hand went to the pins at the left side of her veil.

"I think you will find me extraordinarily beautiful," she said, "perhaps even slave beautiful."

"Perhaps," I said.

She unpinned her veil at the left side, and let it fall, and brushed back the silken hood of her tent robe, shaking her head, freeing a cascade of long, dark hair. She looked at me, amused. "I see that you find me beautiful," she said.

"Yes," I said.

She stood. "Are you familiar with the duties of a silk slave?" she asked. As she spoke, she began to casually disrobe.

"I am a free man," I said.

"But you have some conception of their duties, do you not?" she inquired.

"Yes," I said.

"Such duties, and others," she said, "will be yours."

"I understand," I said.

I caught my breath. She stepped from her robes, softly dropped, as though from a pool of silk at her feet.

"Well?" she asked.

She was stunningly beautiful. She would bring a high price. She then reclined, on cushions, and strewn silks. These were near the back of the small inner sanctum, near the white hangings forming its rear wall. She regarded me, amusement in her eyes. She leaned on one elbow.

"Well?" she asked.

"You are quite beautiful," I said.

"Do you think I would sell easily?" she asked.

"No," I said.

"Oh?" she asked.

"Your price would be much too high," I said. "Most men would not be able to afford you."

"But if I were at a reasonable price," she said.

"Then, doubtless," I said, "you would be snapped up immediately."

"You do regard me then," she said, "objectively, as being quite beautiful?"

"Yes," I said.

"Even slave beautiful?" she asked.

"Your beauty," said I, "at least in its external lineaments might well be the envy of many slaves, and if it were to become itself a slave's beauty, with the inward transformations bondage effects in a woman, it might, in time, in my opinion, attain at least the minimum standards of being slave beautiful."

"Then only a slave can be slave beautiful?" she asked.

"I would not wish to make it a matter of meanings," I said, "but, empirically, it does seem to be pretty much a matter of the condition, a function of its fulfillments, and such."

"Free women are more beautiful than slaves," she said.

"That is false," I said. "Furthermore, every woman, in her heart, knows it is false. Any beauty a free woman has, for example, is enhanced a thousandfold when she becomes a slave."

"I hate slaves!" she said.

"That is because you are not one of them," I said. "You envy them."

"Beware," she said. "I am a free woman!"

"I know," I said.

"And you are totally in my power," she said.

"I understand," I said.

"Approach me, on all fours," she said. "Perhaps I will forgive you, if you are skillful."

I approached her.

"You see me more closely now," she said. "Have you assessed free women before?"

"Yes," I said.

"Assess me," she said.

"As a free woman?" I asked.

"Of course," she said. "That is what I am."

"You are an incredibly beautiful free woman," I said.

"Your body obviously agrees with you," she said.

"Indeed," I admitted.

"And free women," she said, "are a thousand times more, above a mere slave."

"Yes," I said. "There is no comparison. A free woman is inordinately precious. She is a thousand times, and more, above a mere slave."

"Your status here," she said, "is that of a servant, a total servant, until I have you enslaved."

"I understand," I said.

"I think it will be amusing to apply a free man to the duties of a silk slave."

"Doubtless," I said.

"Indeed, I may dally somewhat, as it pleases me, or not, in the matter of your enslavement."

I said nothing.

"And perhaps, if I find you quite good, after you are enslaved, with your fellows, I might not even sell you at the Fair of En-Kara. I might keep you-as a silk slave."

I did not speak.

"You will touch me if, and only as, and exactly as, I direct," she said. "I am total Mistress. I shall obtain considerable gratification from you, and you will obtain gratification, if any, only as it pleases me."

"I understand," I said.

"To the silks, my brawny, helpless servant," she said. She then put her small hands in my hair. She drew me to her. "Please me," she said.

I then began to address myself to her pleasures.

I immersed myself in the exciting, intimate, marvelous, powerful odors of the aroused female.

"Oh, Brinlar," she gasped, suddenly, "you are an excellent servant!"

I took her wrists in my hands and pulled them from my hair, and held them to her sides, meanwhile alternately forcibly and aggressively, and delicately and tenderly, continuing my service.

Her wrists were helpless in my grip. She pressed herself piteously against me.

She began to moan and squirm.

Suddenly she said, "I am helpless! I am being held, helplessly!"

"Forgive me, Mistress," I said, unhanding her, as though my grip upon her might have been an inadvertence.

She seized me again by the hair, drawing me closely to her.

"Oh, Brinlar," she whispered. "Yes, Brinlar! It is marvelous, Brinlar! Do not stop! Yes, Brinlar! Yes!"

In such a; manner can one subdue a female, turning her into an object, totally helpless with pleasure.

"Yes, Brinlar," she whispered. "Yes! Yes!"

I did not think it was necessary to remind her that I was not really according to her the polite courtesies and gentle dignities appropriate to the pleasures of the free woman, but was, in effect, of my own will, by my own decision, subjecting her to attentions more commonly reserved for the imbonded female, the woman who has no choice but to submit to a lengthy and authoritative ravishing, one which well teaches her the meaning of her collar, and what it is to be in the hands of a men, and as he wants her.

"Oh, Brinlar!" she whispered.

Her responses were such that it was difficult to conjecture what her experiences might have been had she truly been a slave, and had she known herself helplessly in my power, and had she know that she must yield totally and without reservation in the last fiber of her very being.

"Brinlar!" she cried, surging against me. "Yes, Brinlar!"

"What is your name?" I asked.

"Yanina!" she cried. "Lady Yanina!"

"Of what city?" I asked.

"Brundisium!" she cried. "Brundisium!"