Players of Gor (36 page)

"It conceals your figure, at least to some degree," I said.

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"You could at least have given me a belt," she said.

"It will conceal your figure bettter, unbelted," I said.

"Please," she asid.

"No," I said.

She cried out in anger, in frustration.

"It is difficult to stand in close chains," she said.

"There," I said, not pleasantly, indicating a place beside the wheel, beside the wagon.

"Very well," she said, rising, and clutching the wagon wheel, and pulling herself up, and around it. "One woman has been beaten in this camp this morning. I have no desire to be the second." These words interested me. A woman behaves very differetnly toward a man whom she knows is capable of disciplining her and may, if it pleases him, do so, then toward one whom she knows she may treat with contempt and scorn with impunity.

"Turn," I said. "Now, turn back."

She clutched the wagon wheel to keep her balance, now again facing me.

"How can I be attractive in this?" she asked.

Last night, after bringing her to the camp, I had removed the offensive, light white gown from her body, that to which she, a free woman, so objected, that in which the brigands to her dismay had insolently clothed her, and, from something I found in the camp, prepared her new garment. I had cut a hole in the material for her head, and two more holes for her arms. I had then had her put her arms over her head and had pulled the garment down over her body. She was then in it. She was then stnading there, regarding me with rage. "Excellent," I had said. I had then chained her by the neck under the wagon and had gone to bed.

"I do not know," I said, "but you are managing."

"It is a sack!" she cried. "Only a sack!"

That was true. It was a long, yellow, closely woven Sa-Tarna sack. If there could have been any doubt about it such doubt would have been dispelled by the thick, black, stenciled lettering on the bag, giving a bold and unmistakable account of its earlier contents, together with their grind and grade, and the signs of the processing mill and its associated wholesaler.

"Am I to gather that you are dissatisfied?" I asked.

"Yes," she said, acidly.

"The yellow sets off your hair nicely," I said. Perhaps if I enslaved her, I would put her in yellow slave silk. She was a beautiful woman.

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"This makes me look ridiculous," she said.

"It is not unknown for free teen-age girls of poor families, in rural areas, to wear such garment," I said. Also, of course, it was not unknown for such girls to put themselves in the way of salvers, that they might be caught, and carried to cities, to be sold. Too often, however, it seemed they were merely sold to peasants in distant villages as sex and work slaves.

"I am not the simple, dirty, barefoot, unkempt, scrawny teen-age daughter of some destitute peasaant in ssome out-of-the-way place," she said. "I am the Lady Yanina of Brundisium!"

"You are barefoot," I said. Prisoners, as well as slaves, are often kept that way on Gor.

"This garment makes me look ridiculous," she said.

"You might look a bit silly," I siad, "but you do not look all the ridiculous. Indeed, I have never seen anyone wear a Sa-Tarna sack better."

"Thank you," she said, in fury.

"You're welcome," I said.

"Give me back the white gown," she said, "that in which the brigands put me!" she said. "I prefer that!"

"That garment," I remeinded her, "is strikingly attrative. It excitingly sets off your beauty. No free owman would consider wearing such a garment unless she was implicitly begging, pleading, for a collar. The brigands doubtless put you in it because it seemed an appropriate garment for a woman they were preparing for a full enslavement."

"I prefer it," she said, angrily.

"Are you a slave?" I asked.

"No!" she said.

"Why, then, would you wish to wear it?" I asked.

"It is pretty," she said, defensively.

I smiled. It was actually tauntingly, brazenly sensuous. "why would you wish to wear womething pretty?" I asked

"To look nice," she said.

"Why do you wish to look nice?" I asked.

"I think better of myself then," she said.

"How do you know when something is pretty?" I asked.

"I just see that it is pretty," she said, puzzled.

"Think more deeply," I said.

"when it makes me attracitive," she said. "Then it is pretty."

"It seems then that the test for prettiness is the enhancement of your appearance, and this is understood in terms of increasing your attractiveness."

"Perhaps," she said, cautiously.

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"Attractivness to what end?" I asked. "Attractiveness to whom?"

"I do not now," she said, sullenly.

"Come now," I encouraged her.

"I am a full-grown woman," she said, agnrily, "I like to be attractive to men!"

"You dress then," I speculated, "in certain says, in order to be attractive to men."

"Perhaps," she said, agnrily.

"She who is concerned with such matters," I said, "she who dresses in certain ways in order to make herself attractive to men, she who dresses herself in certain sayw in odrder that she may be pleasing to them, is, in her heart, a slave."

"Then all females are slaves at heaart," she swaid, angrily.

"Yes," I said.

"No!" she cried.

"And they weill never be fully content," I said, "until they are imbonded."

"No, no, no!" she cried. "No! No!"

I let her cry out in misery, resisting my suggestions. It was good for her.

Then she wiped her forearm across her eyes. "You distract me from the issue," she said. "The issue is my wardrobe."

"Very well," I said.

"Give me somehting else to wear," she said.

"No," I said.

"I am the Lady Yanina of Brundisium," she said. "I do not wear sacks."

"Oh," I said.

"I will wear nothing for a grament before I will wear a sack," she said.

"That can be arranged," I saiid.

"What are you doing?" she asked. "Why are you drawing your knife?"

"To remove the sack from yo," I said. "Nakedness in your chains is acceptable to me."

"No," she said, takinga step backward, clinging to the wagon wheel. "I will wear it!"

I sheathed the knife. "Are you hungry?" I asked.

"Yes," she said.

I reached down and picked up the breakfast which I had put to the side before commencing her chain check.

"It is cold," she said. "Take it away, and bring me another."

"This is your breakfast this morning," I said, "and your only

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breakfast this morning. Eat it, and as it it, or not, as it pleases you."

"Are you serious?" she said.

"Yes," I said.

"Give it to me," she said. I handed her the plate. She began to attack the food voraciously. she might have been a starving slave. I supposed that she, like Lady Telitsia, had probably both been fed spraingly by the brigands, perhaps to conserve food, perhaps to slim their figures somewhat before their projected sale.

I watched her eat. In the Tahari a woman is often stuffed with food for days before her sale, even force fed, if necessary. Many of the men of the Tahari relish soft, pretty, meaty little slaves.

"Why are you looking at my ankles?" she asked.

"They are pretty," I said. Too, the gyves, sturdy and snug, looked nice on them, both from the aesthetic point of view and from the point of view of their significance, for example, that they were mine and that the beauty, confined, wore them. "Too," I said. "I was thinking that perhaps I should remove them, that you could be exercised."

"Doubtless I am to be exercised in the tall grass or in the brush," she said.

"Do not be apprehensive," I said.

"I am to be held in honor," she reminded me.

"At least for the time," I reminded her.

"Yes," she smiled, "at least for the time."

"If you do not wish to be exercised," I said, "I shall not force it upon you. You are a free woman. Not a slave."

"I may continue to wear shackles," she said.

"Yes," I said, "at least for the time."

"Of course," she said.

"Do you enjoy your breakfast?" I asked.

"It is cold," she said.

"Do you enjoy it?" I asked.

"Yes," she said.

"Later," I said, "I will give you something briefer and prettier to wear."

"That will be nice," she said.

"While we are performing," I said.

"Perfroming?" she asked. "In what way?"

"You will see," I said.

"I am not a performer," she said. "I do not know anything about performing."

"Your role will be difficult," I said.

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"I have had no experience in such matters," she said.

"Do not fear," I said, "you will do just splendidly."

"I am not a slave," she said.

"This role calls for a free woman," I said, "otherwise it would not be nearly so interesting or impressive."

"I see," she said, pleased.

She wiped her plate with a crust of one of the rolls. She did not wish to leave a particle of food on that homely tin surface.

"Do you know the lsave in camp, she called Lady Telitsia?" I asked.

"Yes," she said.

"She has not eaten yet," I said.

"So?" asked the Lady Yanina.

"She is probably quite hungry by now," I said.

"So?" she asked.

"I do not think her master would permit her to beg food until a certain free woman, a prisoner in the camp, was fed."

"Probably not," asaid the Lady Yanina. "Why are you bringing the matter up?"

"I thought it might be of interest to you," I said.

"It is not," she said.

"You were common captives of the brigands," I said. "I thought you might have some concern for her."

"No," she said.

"I see," I said.

The Lady Yanina looked at me, and asmiled. She put the piece of crust in her mouth and nibbled on it, slowly. "Let her wait," she said. "She is a slave. Slaves are nothing."

I did not gainsay the Lady Yanina, of course. What she had said was true. I had only brought up the matter as a form of test for her, to satisfy my own curiousity. I wished to more exactly ascertain her self-image. It was, as I had expected, that of the lofty free woman, separating herself, at least publicly, by dimensions and worlds from mere slaves. This was particularly interesting to me in view of the fact that she was herself, obviously, a highly appropriate candidate fo rthe collar. Did she think, truly, she was that different from the slave who, but Ehn ago, had been tied and lashed?

The Lady Yanina handed me the cleaned plate. I put it to one sid. "If I had not eaten the breakfast, you would have tanken it away, and not brought me another, wouldn't you?" she asked.

"Yes," I said.

"And you will keep me in tis pathetic, degrading garment as long as it pleases you, won't you?" she asked.

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"Yes," I said.

"And if I give you trouble, or inconvenience you in any way, in spite of the fact that I am free, you will whip me, won't you?" she asked.

"Yes," I said.

"I have always had my own way with men," she said.

"Are you sure you were dealing with men?" I asked.

"Pehaps not," she said.

"Some women do not realize what men are until they must kneel before them and obey."

"Do you find me attractive?" she asked.

"Yes," I said.

"I want these shackles off," she said, suddenly.

"Do you understand what you are asking?" I asked.

"Yes," she said.

"Why?" I asked.

She averted her eyes. "I do not want to be chained under the wagon at night," she said. "It is hard to sleep on the ground. It is uncomfortable. Too, it is cold and miserable."

"I see," I said.

She looked up at me. "I am willing to do whatever is necessary to be permitted in the wagon, where it is warm and dry," she said.

"Speak clearly," I said.

"Remove my shackles," she said. "I am ready to be ketp as a full prisoner."

Woith the key from my pouch I removed her shackles and thebn, too, removed the collar from her neck.

"Proceed me up the steps into the wagon," I said.

She preceded me up the several steps. She drew the hem of her dress up about her calves, that she not trip. Then we were in side the wagon. I locked her hands behind her back. I locked them there iwth slave bracelets. I did not have another form of manacles for her.