"Were you given permission to speak?" inquired the player.
"No, Master," she said.
"Then be silent," he said.
"Yes, Master," she said.
The player then turned toward Temenides. "Did you say something?" he asked.
"Send the female slave to my table," said Temenides, angrily, pointing at Bina.
"No," said the player.
"Ubar!" cried Temenides, turning to corpulent Belnar, lounging behind the low table, rolling in his fat, eating grapes.
"Perhaps you could buy her," suggested Belnar, dropping a grape into his mouth.
"He just paid a golden tarn disk for her," protested Temenides.
Belnar, not speaking, slowly put two such disks on the table.
"Thank you, Ubar!" said Temenides. He snatched up the two coins. "Here, fool," he said tot he player, lifting up the coins. "Here is a hundred times what she is worth, and twice what you paid for her! She is now mine!"
"No," said the player.
Temenides cast a startled glance at Belnar. Belnar, saying nothing, put three more coins on the table. There were gasps about the hall. Then five coins, altogether, five golden tarn disks, and of Ar herself, as it was pointed out, were offered to the player for his Bina, lifted in the furious, clenched fist of Temenides, of Cos, one of the masters of the high boards of Kaissa in that powerful island ubarate.
"No," said the player.
"Take her from him," said Temenides to Belnar. "Use your soldiers."
Belnar glanced about himself, to some of the guardsmen at the side of the hall.
"I am a citizen of Ar," said the player. "It is my understanding that the cities of Brundisium and Ar stand leagued firmly in friendship, that the wine has been drunk between them, and the salt and fire shared, that they are pledged both in comity and alliance, military and political. If this is not true, I should like to be informed, that word may be carried to Ar of this change in matters. Similarly, I am curious to know why a player of Cos, no 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."