“Capture of Home Stone,” said Terence.
“Ah,” said the pit master, leaning back.
Terence began to reset the board.
“No,” said the pit master, lifting his hand.
“Do you not wish to play again?”
The pit master shook his head.
“Is your heart not in the game?”
“Did we do well?”
“I think so.”
“It is my hope that we did well,” said the pit master.
“Let us play again.”
“No.”
“It will take days for the object to reach Lurius of Jad,” said Terence, “and days for his response.”
“That is not important,” said the pit master.
“I have seen that the papers have been arranged,” said Terence, “those attesting even to the departure of those of the black caste from the city.”
“I have never lost a prisoner before,” said the pit master.
“He will die in the mountains,” said Terence. “He will never reach Ar.”
I recalled that there had been some speculation that the holding of the peasant might be in the vicinity of Ar. To be sure, he himself had not seemed sure of it.
“I think you do not understand,” said the pit master. “I betrayed my trust, my post, my oath to the city.”
Fina looked up from her work.
“What we did may well be in the best interests of the city,” said Terence.
“That does not alter the fact that I betrayed my oath.”
“Would you have had murder done?” asked Terence.
“No,” said the pit master.
“You did what you had to.”
“Of course.”
“Dismiss the matter then from your mind,” said Terence.
“I must now do again what I must,” said the pit master.
“I do not understand,” said Terence.
“What I must do is quite clear,” said the pit master. “The moves were determined from my first action. I have known that from the beginning. It is a forced continuation.”
“I do not understand,” said Terence.
“There are no alternative moves.”
“Let us play again.”
“No.”
Fina seemed frightened. She had stopped her work.
“I will take my leave,” said Terence. “I wish you well.”
“I wish you well,” said the pit master.
Terence then gathered together his things, and left the chamber.
The game between the two guards, unexpectedly, I gathered did turn out to be a draw. He with the advantage had apparently been over confident, or careless, in the endgame. The draw turned, apparently, on a single Spearman. Some games are such, that the outcome depends not on the pieces of power, which may balance one another, but on the smallest move of the most insignificant piece on the board. I suppose that this may upon occasion be true in greater games, as well, that even a child, or slave, properly placed, at a critical juncture, might serve to topple empires. The free woman knelt before the two men and kissed their feet. She was then freed of the neck chain, pulled to her feet, turned about, and thrust toward the portal. This was not done ceremoniously. She might have been no more than a slave. She then hurried, in her manacles and shackles, as she could, toward the guards’ quarters, to prepare wine for them. They followed, their arms about one another’s shoulders. She knew the way. She had served on the mats before.
Fina seemed frightened.
I did not understand her apprehension.
I returned to my sewing. I hoped the guard for whom I labored would be pleased. I did not wish to be beaten. It was my hope, as well, that he would ask for me, and that the pit master would see fit to assign me to him. Oh, how I would run to his mat! How I longed to lie in his arms, and be reminded, once again, of what I was, a slave.
39
I became aware of it only dimly at first.
The sound seemed far off, a pounding, perhaps even a shouting.
Terence, the officer of Treve, had not visited in the depths for several days, not since the last game of Kaissa he had played with the pit master.
The pit master had been unusually sedulous in his duties in past days. Too, he had seemed involved in various mysterious arrangements of which we pit slaves could make nothing, comings and goings, and conversations with various functionaries.
I knew, of course, that by now the grisly gift transmitted to Cos must have arrived.
Again I thought I heard the pounding, far off.
I changed my position, on the tiles, beside the divan of Terence. He had summoned me to him yesterday evening. He had made me serve him exquisitely well. He had accepted only perfections of service from me.
I had seldom been more aware that I was slave than in his presence.
He was attracted to me, I am sure, as a female fit for the purposes of men, but I think, too, he took a rather special pleasure in using me, as one may, with one woman or another, for one reason or another. The special little pleasure he had in me, a particular pleasure with me, as he might and doubtless did have other particular pleasures from other women, aside from the usual marvels, excitements, and gratifications of our slave usages, his to command and ours to provide, again and again at the cost of our won delicious, complete conquest, had to do with the fact that I was from Earth.He seemed to have some sense of what, politically, educationally, and culturally, was being done to the men of Earth, to destroy them, and cripple then, and deprive them of their masculinity. Accordingly it was with a particular pleasure that he made me, a woman of Earth, now taken from Earth, now collared, now in Gorean bondage, throb, and kick, and spasm in his arms, squirming, and crying out, leaping and writhing, gasping, and moaning, licking and kissing, a ravished, subdued, egging slave. “You are pretty you your collar, little slut,” he would whisper. “Thank you, Master!” I would moan. “You have nice slave curves,” he would say. “Thank you, Master!” “Are there others like you, on Earth?” he would inquire. “I do not know, Master!” I would cry. “I do not know!” “How fortunate are the men of Earth,” he would say, “to have women such as you in their collars.” “Have mercy, Master!” I would beg. “Have mercy, Master!” And then he would ruthlessly force again and again upon me the ecstasies of the surrendered woman, those of the subjugated female, those of the utterly vanquished slave. Afterward, sometimes, when I lay at his thigh, clasping his leg, daring to press my lips to him, again and again, softly, humbly, so gratefully, so very gratefully, he would say bitterly, “I should whip you.” “No, Master,” I would whisper. “Please, no, Master.”
I opened my eyes. There was no light now in the room. The tiny lamp had flickered out long ago.
After his uses of me he had, as he had before, put me to the tiles, beside the divan. I lay on its left side, as one would look toward its foot. I was chained there, as before, by the neck. My head, too, as before, was toward its foot. It is not uncommon to sleep the slave with her head at the feet of the master. Most usually there is a slave ring fixed in the couch itself, or on the floor, at the foot of the couch, to which the slave is chained. She is thus commonly slept on the floor, at the foot of the couch. She is also, commonly, when the heat of the master is upon him, used there, by the slave ring to which she is chained. It was a great honor, of course, to be allowed upon the surface of the couch. When one is granted this privilege, one commonly kneels at the foot of the couch, at the left side, as one looks toward its foot, and kisses the coverlets of furs, and then enters upon its surface. One enters at that point, first, because it is the foot, and, second, because most masters are right-handed, and it is thus, as they turn to their side, more convenient for them to stroke and caress the salve. To be sure, it is not at all unknown for a master who is fond of his slave to permit her to share his couch. She is well aware of the privileges entailed, and realizes that they are subject to revocation.
I had been given a sheet.
I now sat up, holding the sheet about me.
It was clearly a pounding. Someone was at the door. Too, someone was calling out, insistently, urgently.