understood ambassador or herald, sits at a high table, at the table even of Belnar, Ubar of this city. Similarly, how is it that Temenides, only a player, and one of Cos, as well, to whom both Brundisium and AR stand opposed, to whom both accord their common defiance, dares to speak so boldly? Perhaps something has occurred of which I was not informed, that ubars now take their orders from enemies, and those not even of high caste?'
Belnar turned away from the soldiers. He did not summon them.
'I have soldiers of my own,' said Temenides. 'With your permission, Ubar, I shall summon them.'
I found this of interest. Surely members of the caste of players do not commonly travel about with a military escort.
Belnar shrugged.
Temenides, triumphantly, turned about, looking about the hall.
'I cannot believe the Belnar is serious,' said the player. 'Are soldiers of Cos within the walls of Brundisium to receive an official sanction to steal from citizens of Ar? Is that the meaning of our alliance?'
Belnar put another grape in his mouth.
'Ubar?' asked Temenides.
'I have a much better idea,' said Belnar, smiling. 'He is a player. You will play for her.'
The player folded his arms and regarded Temenides.
'Ubar!' protested Temenides. 'Consider my honor! I play among the high boards of Cos. This is a mountebank, a player at carnivals, no member even of the caste of players!'
Belnar shrugged.
'Do not think to suggest that I should dishonor my caste by stooping to shame this arrogant cripple. Far nobler it would be to set your finest swordsmen upon some dimwitted bumpkin brandishing a spoon. Let him rather be driven from the hall with the blows of belts like a naked slave for his presumption!'
'Would the court not find such a contest amusing?' inquired Belnar.
Several of the men slapped their shoulders in encouragement. Others called out for a game. I gathered that among those present this discomfiture of Temenides, matching him with so unworthy and preposterous an opponent, might not be unwelcome. In its nature it would be a prank, a practical joke, perhaps a somewhat cruel one, at the least a broad Gorean jest.
'Ubar,' said Temenides, 'do not call for this match. I have no desire to humiliate this deformed freak more than I have already done. Order the female suppliantly to me.'
Bina, terrified, threw herself to her stomach before the player on the platform. She kissed the wood twice before his feet. Then, lifting herself on the palms of her hands, she looked piteously up at him. 'Risk not so much in this hall, I beg of you, Master,' she wept. 'Permit me to crawl suppliantly to him, proposing myself for his pleasures.'
'Strip,' snarled the player.
Instantly Bina tore away the scarf knotted about her hips, that which had formerly been tied about her throat, concealing her collar.
The player continued to regard her.
She now knelt weeping, trembling, before him, at his mercy, owned, slave naked.
'Now,' said the player, 'what did you say?'
'Permit me to crawl suppliantly to him, proposing myself for his pleasures,' she whispered, frightened.
The player suddenly, angrily, kicked her to her side. She cried out with pain and twisting, frightened, a spurned and disciplined slave, turned to look at him. On her left wrist there was a use bracelet. ON her neck there was a collar. ON her thigh was a brand.
'You belong to me,' he said.
'Yes, Master,' she said.
'It seems,' said Belnar to Temenides, amused, 'that the player is disinclined to extend to you the female's use.'
'Do not seek to force a match between us, Ubar,' said Temenides. 'I will not consider a match with such a fellow, not with a creature of such outrageous deformity, not with one such as he, one who is, by all reports, at best naught but a harrowingly disfigured monster.'
'The slave is exquisite,' said Belnar. 'Apparently you do not wish to have her yielding helplessly, passionately, obediently in her collar, in your arms.'
'Ubar,' said Temenides, in protest.
'Play,' said Belnar.
'Forcing me to such an extremity,' said Temenides, 'could well be construed as a state insult in the lofty chambers of Cos.'
This remark surprised me. How could such a trivial thing as a joke in Brundisium, one having to do with a mere member of the caste of players, the fellow, Temenides, involve relations among thrones?
'Very well,' said Belnar, agreeably, 'but forgo then the woman.'
Temenides' fists clenched. He regarded Bina, who shrank back from his gaze.
'Play, play!' urged more than one man.
Temenides looked about himself, angrily. Then he regarded the player.
'Perhaps the great Temenides, who holds a high board in Cos, fears to enter into a banquet's friendly game, or, say, an evening's casual tourney, with one who is a mere mountebank, a monster,' suggested the player.
There was laughter at this suggestion. Temenides turned red.
'Could it be?' asked the player.
'I do not play bumpkins,' said Temenides.
'I, on the other hand,' said the player, 'am obviously willing to do so.'
This remark brought a roar of laughter from the crowd. Even Belnar chuckled. Temenides turned even more red, and clenched his fists savagely. His mood was turning ugly.
Near the feet of the player, Bina trembled, head down.
Temenides rose to his feet. In his movement, studied and unprecipitated, there was resolution and menace. 'Very well,' said he. 'I shall play you, but it shall be but one game, and upon one condition, that the game may be worth my while.' The hall was suddenly quiet. Temenides spoke softly and clearly. IN his words there was an exactness, and a chill. His anger now was like the stirring of a beast beneath ice, whose shape may be vaguely seen below, giving some hint of the force and danger lurking in the depths. 'We shall play,' said he, 'not for the mere use of the female, but for her ownership, to see whose collar it will be that shall be locked upon her throat. Further, the life of he who loses shall be forfeit to the victor, to be done with as he pleases.'
Several of those in the hall gasped. 'But he is a free man,' protested one. It is one thing to play for a female, of course, for Goreans tend to regard such as fit for spoils and loot, particularly if they should be, to begin with, naught but properties, mere chattels, but it is quite another to set free males at stake.
Temenides did not respond to this protest.
'And,' asked the player, 'if you should win, and claim, this forfeit, what might I expect to be your pleasure?'
'That you be boiled alive in the oil of tharlarion,' said Temenides.
'I see,' said the player. Bina moaned.
'There will now be no game,' said one of the fellows at the Ubar's table.
'Well, fellow?' inquired Temenides.
'Agreed,' said the player.
Several of those in the hall, free men and naked slaves alike, gasped. 'No, no, Master, please!' cried Bina.
'Be silent,' said the player.
'Yes, Master,' she wept.
'Secure the female,' said Belnar. 'Let a board and pieces be brought.'
Bina's hands were thonged tightly together before her body. A ring, on a rope, one of several, was lowered from the ceiling. These rings, when lowered, hung a few feet above the floor, some six or seven feet above it, in the open space between the tables. These rings may serve various purposes, such as the display of disgraced females destined for slavery, most likely debtors, or the public punishment of errant slaves, but their number is largely dictated by the occasional use of displaying captured, stripped free women of enemy cities. These women,
