Marlenus was a superb player.
He had not been able to handle me as well as he liked on the board. This had whetted his appetite to crush me. He had not been able to do so. In the past year, in Port Kar, I had grown much fond of the game. I had tried to play frequently with players of strength superior to my own. I found myself often, eventually, capable of beating them. Then I would seek others, stronger still. I had studied, too, the games of masters, in particular those of the young, handsome, lame fiery Scormus of Ar, and of the much older, almost legendary master of Cos, gentle, white-haired Centius, he of the famed Centian opening. Scormus was fierce, arrogant and brilliant. The medallion and throne of Centius was no, by many, said to be his. But there were those who did not agree. The hand of Centius now sometimes shook, and it seemed his eyes did not see the board as once they did. But there few men on Gor who did not fear as the hand of Centius thrust forth his Ubar’s Tarnsman to Physician Seven. It was said that Scormus of Ar and Centius of Cos would sometime meet at the great fair of En’kara, in the shadow of the Sardar. Never as yet had the two sat across from one another. Cos, like Tyros, is a traditional enemy of Ar. It was said that Gor awaited this meeting. Already weights of gold had been wagered on its outcome. Players, incidentally, are free to travel where they wish on the surface of Gor, no matter what might be their city. By custom, they, like musicians, and like singers, there are few courts at which they are not welcome. That he had once played a man such as Scormus of Ar, or Centius of Cos it the sort of thing that a Gorean grandfather will boast of to his grandchildren.
“Very well,” said Marlenus. “Then we shall not, now, play.”
I held forth my cup, for wine. The slave girl filled it.
“When will you fare forth to an exchange point?” I asked.
Marlenus had now been in his camp for five days, hunting. He had made no effort to reach the exchange point, or its vicinity, where Talena was held slave. It would lie through the forests to the west, above Lydius, on the coast of Thassa. “I have not yet finished hunting,” said Marlenus. He was in no hurry to free Talena.
“A citizen of Ar,” I said, “lies slave.”
“I have little interest,” said Marlenus, “in slaves.”
“She is a citizen of Ar,” I said.
Marlenus looked down into his cup, swirling the liquid. “Once, perhaps,” said Marlenus, “she was a citizen of Ar.” I looked at him.
“She is no longer a citizen of Ar,” said Marlenus. “She is a slave.” In the eyes of Goreans, and Gorean law, the slave is an animal. She is not a person, but an animal. She has no name, saving what her master might choose to call her. She is without caste. She is without citizenship. She is simply an object, to be bartered, or bought or sold. She is simply an article of property, completely, nothing more.
“She is Talena,” I said.
“I know of no person by that name,” said Marlenus.
“Surely,” I said, “you will have pity on a slave, however unworthy, who was once a citizen of Ar?” “I shall free her, or have her freed,” said Marlenus. He looked down. Then he looked up at me. “I will send men to free her, while I return to Ar,” he said. “I see,” I said.
“But,” said Marlenus, “I think I will have a few days hunting first.” I shrugged. “I see,” I said, “Ubar.” Marlenus snapped his fingers, pointing to his cup on the table.
The slave girl came forward, from where she knelt to one side, and, kneeling, from a two-handled vessel, filled it. She was very beautiful.
“I, too, shall have wine,” I said.
She filled my cup. Our eyes met. She looked down. She was barefoot. Her one garment was a brief slip of diaphanous yellow silk. Her brand was clearly visible beneath it, high on the left thigh. On her throat, half concealed by her long blond hair, was a collar of steel, the steel of Ar.
“Leave us, Slave,” said Marlenus.
She did so.
The girl had been beaten earlier in the afternoon. She had run away. Marlenus, with two huntsmen, had taken her within the Ahn. Marlenus, who had hunted in the forests since his boyhood, was a master of woodcraft. She had been unable to elude him. Dazed, shocked, she had been swiftly caught and returned to camp. Marlenus had then handed her over to a huntsman. She had been stripped and, hands tied over her head to a post, had been given ten lashes. Marlenus, and most of those about the camp, had not bothered to watch. It was simply a slave girl being punished. The punishment was so light because it was the first time the girl had attempted to run away. Also, she was new to her collar, and did not yet fully understand the futility of her condition. During her beating, and afterward, Marlenus and I had been engaged in playing the game. Her had beaten me once, and I had drawn twice. After her beating, she had been left bound to the post for two Ahns. When Marlenus ordered her freed from the post, he stood nearby. “Do not attempt to run away again,” he told her, and then turned away. Verna made a beautiful slave girl. She was exquisitely bodied, extremely intelligent and extremely proud.
Marlenus treated her no differently than any other new girl.
This infuriated Verna. She had been one of the most famed outlaw women on Gor. In the camp of Marlenus she was only another girl.
Long ago, more than a year ago, when he had first captured Verna on a hunting expedition, prior to her escape and acquisition of Talena, and her return to the forests, he had intended to bring her to Ar in triumph and there, in the great square before Ar’s central cylinder, publicly enslave her. This time, he had put the iron to her, and her girls, the first night he had arrived in his camp north of Laura, as though they might have been the meanest of captures. She had been branded eleventh, casually and insolently, in her turn, for that had been her place in the slave coffle when the camp had been reached. With a similar lack of ceremony Marlenus had fastened her collar on her.
But in some respects Marlenus had treated her differently from the others, as more of a slave, more of a common girl. The others were treated, for the time, more as panther girls. She was treated more as a common wench, who might have been any slave girl.
The panther girls, in Marlenus’ camp, though they were kept chained, were permitted to wear the skins of panthers.
Verna had stood before him, waiting to be given the skins of panthers. Instead, she had been thrown slave silk.
“Put it on,” had said Marlenus.
She had done so.
I noted, and I do not doubt but that it was detected, too, by Marlenus, that her body, as she drew the brief, exotic, degrading silk about her, subtly and mistakably, was shaken by an involuntary tremor of sensuality. Then she was again Verna. I suppose it was the first time her body had felt silk. I have often wondered at the excitement generated in women by the simple feel of silk on their bodies. I gather that it is a sensuous experience. Surely it would be difficult for a woman to wear silk and not, by that much more, be aware of her womanhood. But perhaps Verna’s response was not simply to silk. Indeed, that would hardly account for the totality of her involuntary response, her body’s betrayal. It was not ordinary silk Marlenus had thrown to her. It was not ordinary silk which she then, for the first time, felt on her body. It was the softest and finest of diaphanous silks, clinging and betraying. It had been milled to reveal a woman most exquisitely and beautifully to a master. It was brief, exotic, humiliating, degrading. It was, of course, slave silk. I wondered if Verna had ever dreamed of herself in such silk. She now stood before Marlenus, so clad. She tried to stand as a panther girl, but he had laughed at her. Her girls too, had jeered her. She turned away, and fled to the wall of the stockade, weeping.
It seemed important to Marlenus to separate her girls from her.
That was perhaps part of his plan. That was perhaps one reason for putting her in slave silk. Another reason, of course, was that it pleased him, her master, to see her so.
Once, she so clad, her hands braceleted before her, her arm held by a guard, she was led past her girls, in their skins, chained by one of the stockade walls. “Pretty slave!’ they had jeered at her.
She had tried to kick at them and fall upon them but her guard, controlling her easily, for she was only a woman, dragged her away. The girls had jeered after her.
She was taken to the kitchen tent, where she was given lessons, as a slave girl, in the preparation and serving of food. She would also, of course, be taught how to sew, and to wash and iron clothing. When Marlenus took his meals in his tent, or wished refreshments or win, Verna, the new girl, served him “Have you used her yet?” I asked Marlenus.
The girl poured us our wine. One may speak freely before slaves.
“That is enough,” said Marlenus, and the girl withdrew to one side, to wait until she must serve again.
Marlenus turned and looked at her. “No,” he said. “She is a raw girl, ignorant.” Verna, from where she knelt, looked at him, angrily, holding the two-handled wine vessel. At her throat was his collar, in her thigh, burned, his brand, on her body, his silk. She looked away.
“If you will observe,” said Marlenus, who had studied thousands of women, “she seems ready, even marvelous, but yet there is a subtle unreadiness, a subtle stiffness in her body. Note the shoulders, the wrists, the diaphragm.” The girl’s fists clenched on the twin handles of the wine vessel.
“Remove you clothing, and stand,” said Marlenus.
The slave did so.
“You see?” asked Marlenus.
I studied her. The girl looked away. She was incredibly beautiful. Yet there did seem something subtly different about her, something which separated her softness, proud and vulnerable in the tent of her master, from the incomparable, delicious yielded softness, eager, tender, at times pleading, of a girl such as Cara.
Perhaps it was partly a stiffness in the shoulders. Perhaps it was something about the wrists. The backs of her hands faced us. The normal fall of a girl’s hands places her palms at her thighs.
“Place your palms on your thighs,” said Marlenus.
“Beast,” she hissed. She did so. She felt her brand.
I also noted a tenseness about her diaphragm, doubtless that which Marlenus had wished to indicate. It was tight, not vital and expectant.
“Turn about,” said Marlenus. She did so. I noted the exquisite curvatures of her.
“She is beautiful,” I said. Her fists were clenched.
“Yes,” said Marlenus. “But note how she stands.”
“I see,” I said.
It was indeed interesting. She stood very proudly, very angrily. Her head was high, her fists were clenched. Her weight was equally on the balls of her feet. I could see the hamstrings, the beautiful, resilient tendons behind her knees, now like tight, proud cords, holding her erect.
“Disregard,” said Marlenus, “the obvious things, her pride, her anger, the clenched fists.” “Yes,” I said.
