In a moment the actors had returned to the stage, bowing. With them, too, were some of the actors from the earlier farces, usually presented in rounds of four or five. Some tarsk bits rattled to the boards. These were gathered in by the Chino and Lecchio. The Bina and Brigella, too, were now passing through the drowd with copper bowls. They were both very lovely, in particular, the Brigells. Such girls, like the other actresses wiht a small troupe, usually serve also as tent girls. It helps the troupe to meet expenses. I placed a tarsk bit in the towl of the Brigella. "Thank you, Master," she said.
The paunchy fellow, his belly swinging, now out of character as the merchant, was informing the qudience that a new round of farces, all different, would be performed within the Ahn. I saw his eyes momentarily cloud and, glancing back, I think I detected a possible cause for his distress. In the crowd was an officer of the Master of Revels, with two members of the Council Guard.
I drew the girl beside me to her feet. "Oh, yes," she breathed, "now," holding me, pressing her naked, collared beauty piteously against me, "take me to a pleasure rack. Now, please. I am so ready. I am so hot!"
"Not yet," I told her.
I then bought her a pastry from a vendor. "Eat it," I told her, "slowly, very slowly. Make it last a long time."
"Yes, Master," she said.
When a woman is ordered to eat a pastry in this fashion, she knows that she is barely to touch it, and then only once in a while, wit her small teeth. Rather, primarily, almost entirely, she is to address herself to it with her tongue. This puts her under a good discipline, is a good exercise for the tongue and tends to increase sexual heat. N the case of the free woman the tongue is usually something which serves rather conventional purposes, for example it helps her to talk. IN the case of the slave girl, however, it serves other purposes as well.
I moved along the front of the stage, through the crowd, the slave, the pastry clutched in her hands, at my elbow.
I paused only a yard or two from the end of the stage, before a kaissa booth.
I saw a large figure walking by. It might have stalked off one of the long, narrow, roofed stages or Ar, such as serve commonly for serious drama, spectacle and high comedy. It wore the 'cothornoi', a form of high platformlike boots, a long robe padded in such a way as to suggest an incredible breadth of shoulder, a large, painted linen mask, with exaggerated features, which covered the entire hed, and the 'onkos', a towering, imposing headdress. Such costumes are often used by major characters in serious dramas. This exaggeration in size and feature, I take it, is intended to be commensurate with their importance. They are, at any rate, made to seem larger than life. I did not know if the fellow were an actor or simply someone adopting such a costume, all in the fun of carnival. As he walked away I noted that the mask had a different expression on the back. That device, not really very common in such masks, makes possible a change of expression without having recourse to a new mask.
A fellow, a pulley-maker I recognized from the arsenal, and the arsenal kaissa champion, rose to his feet, from where he had been sitting cross-legged before the kaissa board in the kaissa booth. "A marvelous game," he said, rubbing his head, bewildered. "I was humiliated. I was devastated. I do not even know how he did it. In fourteen moves he did it! In fourtenn moves he captured three pieces and it would have been capture of Home Stone on the next! Perhaps there were illegal moves. Perhaps I did not see everything he did!"
"Try another game," encouraged the paunchy fellow, he who had been associated with the stage and who, it seemed, had an interest also in the kaissa booth. "Perhaps your luck will change!"
But the pulley-maker, almost reeling, made his way away, through the crowds.
"Why did you do that?" asked the paunchy fellow of the man sitting behind the board.
"he thought he knew how to play kaissa," said the man behind the board.
"How much have you taken in tonight?" asked the paunchy fellow, angrily, pointing to the copper, lidded pot, with the coin slot cut in its top, chained shut, near the low kaissa table.
The fellow behind the table began to move the pieces about on the board.
The paunchy fellow seized up the pot. He shook it, assessing its contents. "Four, five tarsk bits?" he asked. Judging from the timing and the sounds of the coins bounding about inside the pot there was not much there.
"Three," siad the fellow behind the board.
"You could have carried him for at least twenty moves," siad the paunchy fellow. He replaced the copper coin pot, chained shut, beside the kaissa table.
"I did not care to do so," said the fellow behind the board.
Interestingly the man behind the board wore black robes and a hoodlike mask, alsso black, which covered his entire head. He did not wear the red-and-yellow-checked robes of the caste of players, he was not, thus, I assumed, of that caste. Had he been of the players he would doubtless have worn their robes. They are quite proud of their caste. His skills, howver, I conjectured, must be considerable. Apparently the arsenal champion, one of the best twenty or thirty players in Port Kar, had been not match for him. Perhaps he had engaged in illegal moves. That seemed more likely than the fact that he, a fellow like him, associated with actors and carnival folk, and such, could best the arsenal champion. It ws carnival time, of course. Perhaps the champion had been drdink.
"If the game is not interesting for htem, if they do not htink they are really playing, seriously, they will not want a second or a thrid game," said the paunchy fellow. "We want them to come back! We want the board busy! That is how we are making the money!"
The price for a game is usually something between a tarsk bit and and a copper tarsk. If the challenger wins or draws, the game is free. Someteimes a copper tarsk, or even a silver tarsk, is nailed to one of the poles of the booth. It goes to the challenger if he wins and the game is free, if he draws. This is because a skillful player, primarily by judicious exchanges and careful position play, can often bring about a draw. Less risk is involved in playing for a draw than a win, of course. Conservative players, ahead in tournament play, often adopt this stratagem, usuing it, often to the fury of the crowds and their opponents, to protect and nurse an established lead. A full point is scored for a win; in a draw each player obtains a half point.
"you must manage to lose once in a while," said the paunchy fellow. "That will bring them back! That way, in the the long run, we will make much more money!"
"I play to win," siad the fellow, looking at the board.
"I do not know why I put up with you!" said the paunchy fellow. "You are only a roustabout and vagabond!"
I noted the configuration of the pieces on the board. The hooded fellow had not begun from the opening position, arriving at the configuration after a series of moves. he had simply set the pieces up originally in that position. Something about the position seemed familiar. I suddenly realized, with a start, that I had seen it before. It was the position which would be arrived at on the seventeenth move of the Ubara's Gambit Declined, Yellow Home stone having been placed at Ubara's Builder One, providing red had, on the eleventh move, departed from the main line, transposing into the Turian line. Normally, at this point, one continues with the advancement of the Ubara's Initiate's Spearman, supporting the attack being generated on the adjacent file, that of the Ubara's Builder. he, however, advanced the Ubar's Initiate's Spearman in a two-square-option move, grining it to Ubar's Initiate Five. I wondered if he knew anything about kaissa. Then, suddenly, the move seemed interesting to me. It would, in effect, launch a second attack, and one which might force yellow to bring pieces to the Ubar's side of the board, thereby weakening the position of the Ubara's Builder's File, making it more vulnerable, then, of course, to the major attack. It was an interesting idea, I wondered if it had ever been seriously played.