Players of Gor by John Norman Page A

a Tuchuk saddle knife, balanced for throwing. I myself had voted in the council for the checking of weapons before entering the piazza during carnival. The least I could do, it seemed to me, was to comply with a ruling which I myself had publicly supported.
    I remembered now where I had seen the man who had spoken to me near the platform of the magician. He had been waiting near one of the checking points opening onto the piazza, that point through which I had entered. It was there that I had seen him.
    The checking of the weapons is accomplished as follows: One surrenders the weapons and the guard, in turn, tears a ticket in two, placing one half with the weapons and giving you the other half. This ticket is numbered on both ends. In reclaiming the weapons one matches the halves, both with respect to division and number. My half of the ticket was now in my wallet. The ticket is of rence paper, which is cheap in Port Kar, owing to its proximity to one of Gor's major habitats for the rence plant, the vast marshes of the Vosk's delta.
    "Captain," said a voice.
    I turned about. "Captain Henrius?" I asked. He, grinning, thrust up the mask. It was he. I thought I had recognized the voice. The young Captain Henrius was of the lineage of the Sevarii. Once he had been of my house but now held sway in his own house. With him was his lovely slave, Vina, who once had been intended to be the companion of gross Lurius of Jad, then, sharing his throne, to be proclaimed the Ubara of Cos. She was now a slave in Port Kar. I had not recognized her immediately for the gaudy paints which had been applied to her body. She knelt beside Henrius, holding to his thigh, that she not be forced away from him in the crowd.
    "Someone is looking for you," said Henrius.
    "Who?" I asked.
    "I do not know," he said.
    "He suggests that you meet him among the purple booths, in Booth Seventeen."
    "Thank you," I said.
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    Henrius, then, with a grin, readjusted his mask, drew Vina to her feet and, with her in tow, by an elbow, vanished in the crowd.
    I looked after them. I was fond of them both.
    A free woman, in swirling robes of concealment, veiled, appeared before me. "Accept my favor, please!" she laughed. She held forth the scarf, teasingly, coquettishly. "Please, handsome fellow!" she wheedled. "Please, please!" she said. "Please!"
    "Very well," I smiled.
    She came quite close to me.
    "Herewith," she said, "I, though a free women, gladly and willingly, and of my own free will, dare to grant you my favor!"
    She then thrust the light scarf though an eyelet on the collar of my robes and drew it halfway though. In this fashion it would not be likely to be dislodged.
    "Thank you, kind sir, handsome sir!" she laughed. She then sped away, laughing.
    She had had only two favors left at her belt, I had noted. Normally in this game the woman begins with ten. The first to dispense her ten favors and return to the starting point wins. I looked after her, grinning. It would have been churlish, I thought, to have refused the favor. Too, she had begged so prettily. This type of boldness, of course, is one that a woman would be likely to resort to only in the time of carnival. The granting of such favors probably has a complex history. Its origin may even trace back to Earth. This is suggested by the fact that, traditionally, the favor, or the symbolic token of the favor, is a handkerchief or scarf. Sometimes a lady's champion, as I understand it, might have borne such a favor, fastened perhaps to a helmet or thrust in a gauntlet.
    It is not difficult, however, aside from such possible historical antecedents, and the popular, superficial interpretations of such a custom, in one time or another, to speculate on the depth meaning of such favors. One must understand, first, that they are given by free women and of their own free will. Secondly, one must think of favors in the sense that one might speak of a free woman granting, or selling, her favors to a male. To be sure,