"You still have red," observed my opponent.
"I have waited long for this moment of vengeance," I said. "M triumph here will be all the sweeter for having experienced so many swift, casual, outrageously humiliating defeats at your hands."
"Your attitude is interesting," he said. "I doubt that I myself would be likely to find in one victory an adequate compensation for a hundred somewhat embarrassing defeats."
"It is not that I am so bad," I said, defensively. "It is rather that you are rather good."
"Thank you," he said.
To be honest, I had never played with a better player. Many Goreans are quite skilled in the game, and I had played with them. I had even, upon occasion, played with members of the caste of players, but never, never, had I played with anyone who remotely approached the level of this fellow. His play was normally exact, even painfully exact, and an opponent's smallest mistake or least weakness in position would be likely to be exploited devastatingly and mercilessly, but, beyond this, an exhibition of a certain brilliant methodicality not unknown among high-level players, it was often characterized by an astounding inventiveness, an astounding creativity, in combinations. He was the sort of fellow who did not merely play the game but contributed to it. Further, sometimes to my irritation, he often, too often, in my opinion, seemed to produce these things with an apparent lack of effort, with an almost insolent ease, with an almost arrogant nonchalance.
It is one thing to be beaten by someone; it is another thing to have it done roundly, you sweating and fuming, while the other fellow, as far as you can tell, is spending most of his time, except for an occasional instant spent sizing up the board and moving, in considering the ambient trivia of the camp or the shapes and motions of passing clouds. If this fellow had a weakness in Kaissa it was perhaps a tendency to occasionally indulge in curious or even reckless experimentation. Too, I was convinced he might occasionally let his attention wander just a bit too much, perhaps confident of his ability to overcome inadvertencies, or perhaps because of a tendency to underestimate opponents. Too, he had an interest in the psychology of the game. Once he had put a Ubara 'en prise' in a game with me. I, certain that it must be the bait in some subtle trap I could not detect, not only refused to take it but, worrying about it, and avoiding it, eventually succeeded in producing the collapse of my entire game. Another time he had done the same thing with pretty much the same results. "I had not noticed that it was 'en prise'," he had confessed later. "I was thinking about something else." Had I dared to take advantage of that misplay I might not have had to wait until now to win a game with him. Yes, he was sometimes a somewhat irritating fellow to play. I had little doubt, however, that, in playing with him, my skills in Kaissa had been considerably sharpened.
"Do you wish to resign?" I asked him.
"I do not think so," he said.
"The game is over," I informed him.
"I agree," he said.
"It would be embarrassing to bring it to its conclusion," I said.
"Perhaps," he admitted.
"Resign," I suggested.
"No," he said.
"Do not be churlish," I smiled.
"That is a privilege of 'monsters'," he said.
"Very well," I said. Actually I did not want him to resign. I had waited a very long time for this victory, and I would savor every move until capture of Home Stone.
"What is going on?" asked Bina, coming up to us, chewing a larma.
"We are playing Kaissa," said the monster.
I noted that she had not knelt. She had not thrust her head to the ground. She had not asked for permission to speak. Her entire attitude was one of slovenly disregard for our status, that of free men. She was not my slave, of course. She belonged to Boots.
"I can see that," she said, biting again into the larma. The juice ran down the side of her mouth.
Her foot was on the edge of the monster's robes, as he sat before the board, cross-legged.
"Who is winning?" she asked.
"It does not matter," I said. I was angry with her animosity towards the monster. It was not my intention to give her any occasion to receive gratification over his discomfiture. She wore light, leather slippers. Boots had permitted footwear to both Bina and Rowena. He was an indulgent master. To be sure, Lady Telitsia had not yet been permitted footwear, but then she had not yet been permitted clothing either, except for her collar, except when it was in the nature of costuming for her performances. "Do you play?" I asked.
"I am a slave," she said. "I cannot so much as touch the pieces of the game without permission without risking having my hands cut off, or being killed, no more than weapons."
"You do not know how to play, then?" I said.
"No," she said.
"Do you understand anything of the game?" I asked.
"No," she said.
"I see," I said. That pleased me. It was just as well if she did not understand the dire straits in which my opponent now found himself. That would surely have amused the slinky little slut. Surely she knew her foot was on his robes. Surely he, too, must be aware of this.
"I have offered to extend to you such permissions, and teach you," he said.
"I despise you," she said.
"Your foot is on the robes of my antagonist," I said.
"Sorry," she said. She stepped back a bit, and then, deliberately, with her slipper, kicked dust onto his robes.
"Beware!" I said.
"You do not own me!" she said. "Neither of you own me!"
"Any free man may discipline an insolent or errant slave," I said, "even one who is in the least bit displeasing, even one he might merely feel like disciplining. I she is killed, or injured, he need only pay compensation to her master, and that only if the master can be located within a specific amount of time and requests such compensation." IN virtue of such customs and statutes the perfect discipline under which Gorean slaves are kept is maintained and guaranteed even when they are not within the direct purview of their masters or their appointed agents. She turned white.
"We are playing," said my opponent. "Do not pursue the matter."
She relaxed, visibly, and regained her color. Then she regarded my opponent. "You should not even be with the troupe," she said. "You do not bring in enough coins to pay for your own suls. You are hideous. You are worthless! You are a fool and a contemptible weakling! All you do, all you can do, is play Kaissa. It is a stupid game. Moving little pieces of wood about on a flat, colored board! How stupid! How absurd! How foolish!"
"Perhaps you have some duties to attend to elsewhere," I speculated.
"Leave the camp, Monster," she said to my opponent. "No one wants you here. Go away!"
I regarded the female.
"Yes," she said to me, angrily, "I have duties to attend to!"
"Then see to them, female slave," I said.
"Yes," she said. She then tossed her head, and left.
"An insolent slut," I said, "muchly in need of the whip."
"Perhaps she is right," he said.
"In what way?" I asked.
He looked down at the board. "Perhaps it is stupid, or absurd, or foolish, that men should concern themselves with such things."
"Kaissa?" I asked.
"Yes," he said.
"Now," I said, "you are truly being foolish."