Marlenus looked up at me.
He nodded with his head toward the line of girls, pressed back on the grass, steel at their throats, struggling bound in the arms of captors.
“You may have any of them, if you wish,” said Marlenus.
“No, Ubar,” I told him.
After an Ahn Marlenus said. “We shall return to Verna’s camp. We shall spend the night there. In the morning we shall return to my camp, north of Laura.” He rose to his feet.
“Present the slaves,” said Marlenus, “to their leader.”
One by one, the girls, their wrists still bound behind their back, their right ankles still in coffle, were dragged before Verna.
Some struggled. Few held up their heads.
“Verna!” wept one. “Verna!”
Verna did not speak to her.
Then the girls, in coffle, were led away into the darkness, herded by the butts of spears. Some wept.
“At your camp,” Marlenus informed Verna, “we will put them in proper chains.” Marlenus then released Verna’s wrists, and her right ankle. She was still bound to a stake by the left ankle.
“Stand,” he said.
She did so.
“Bracelets,” he said.
She looked at him, with hatred.
“Bracelets,” he snapped.
She put her head in the air and placed her hands behind her back.
Marlenus locked bracelets on her. They were slave bracelets.
“Have you no heavier chains?” she asked.
“Free yourself,” said Marlenus.
The girl struggled, helplessly. In the end she was, of course, as perfectly secured as before.
“They are slave bracelets,” said Marlenus. “They are quite adequate to hold a woman.” Verna shook with fury, and turned her head away.
Marlenus then took a length of binding fiber, of some eight feet in length, and knotted one end of it about Verna’s throat. The other end he looped twice about his belt.
He then bent down and, with his sleen knife, slashed the binding fiber that still fastened her left ankle to the stake.
Verna was now free of the stakes. She had exchanged the bondage of the stakes for that of bracelets and leash.
She looked at him. She stood before him, her wrists fastened behind her back, her neck in his tether.
“Are you always victorious, Marlenus of Ar?” she asked.
“Lead us, little tabuk,” said Marlenus, “to your stall.”
She turned about, in fury, her head in the air, and led us through the darkness toward her camp.
“We have much to talk about,” Marlenus was telling me. “It has been long since we have seen one another.”
11 Marlenus Holds a Flaminium
In the camp of Marlenus, some pasangs north of Laura, I supped with the great Ubar.
His hunting tent, hung on its eight great poles, was open at the sides. From where we sat, cross-legged, across from one another, before the low table, I could see the tent ropes stretched taut to stakes in the ground, the drainage ditch cut around the base of the tent, the wall of saplings, sharpened, which surrounded the camp. I could see, too, Marlenus’ men at their fires and shelters. Here and there were piled boxes, and rolls of canvas, and, too, at places, were poles and frames on which skins were stretched, trophies of his luck in the sport. He had, too, taken two sleen alive, and four panthers, and these were in stout cages of wood, lashed together with leather.
“Wine,” said Marlenus.
He was served by the beautiful slave girl.
“Would you care for a game?” asked Marlenus, indicating a board and pieces which stood to one side. The pieces, tall, weighted, stood ready on their first squares.
“No,” I said to him. I was not in a mood for the game.
I had played Marlenus before. His attack was fierce, devastating, sometimes reckless. I myself am an aggressive player, but against Marlenus it seemed always necessary to defend. Against him one played defensively, conservatively, postitionally, waiting, waiting for the tiny misjudgment, the small error or mistake. But it was seldom made.
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.