Raiders of Gor by John Norman Page B

them, stood about me, laughing,
    looking from one to the other, giggling.
    I looked at them, with agony.
    “You have been won,” said Telima.
    The girls looked at one another, saying nothing, but laughing and poking one
    another.
    I pulled at the marsh vine, helpless.
    “Who has won you?” asked Telima.
    The girls giggled.
    Then the lithe, dark-haired girl, slender-legged and provocative, stepped quite
    close to me.
    “Perhaps,” she whispered, “you are my slave.”
    “Am I your slave?”
    “Perhaps you are mine,” whispered the tall, blond girl, gray-eyed, in my ear.
    She pressed a coil of marsh vine against my left arm.
    “Whose slave am I?” I cried.
    The girls gathered about, each one to touch me, to caress me as might a
    mistress, to whisper in my ear that it might be she to whom I belonged, she whom
    I must now serve as slave.
    “Whose slave am I?” I cried, in agony.
    “You will find out,” said Telima, “at the feast, then, at the height of
    festival.”
    The girls laughed, and the men behind them.
    I stood numb at the pole, while Telima unbound me. “Do not remove the garland of
    rence flowers,” said she.
    Then I stood free at the pole, save that I wore teh collar of marsh vine she had
    fastened on my neck, and a garland of rence floweres.
    “What am I to do?” I asked.
    “Go help the women prepare the feast,” said she.
    All laughed as I turned away.
    “Wait!” called she.
    I stopped.
    “At feast,” she said, “you will, of course, serve us.” she laughed. “And since
    you do not know which of us is your mistress, you will serve each, every one of
    us, as slave. And you will serve well. If she who is your mistress is not well
    satisfied, doubtless you will be severely punished.”
    There was much laughter.
    “Now go,” said she, “and help the women with the food.”
    I turned to face the girl. “Who,” I begged, “is my mistress?”
    “You will find out at feast,” she said angrily, “at the height of festival! Now
    go and help the women to prepare the feast -- Slave!”
    I turned away, and, as they laughed, went to help the women in their work,
    preparing food for festival.
    It was now late on the night of festival, and most of the feast had been
    consumed.
    Torches, oiled coils of marsh vine wound about the prongs of marsh spears,
    thrust butt down in the rence of the island, burned in the marsh night.
    The men sat cross-legged in the outer circles, and, in the inner circles, in the
    fashion of Gorean women, the women knelt. There were children about the
    periphery of the circles but many of them were already asleep on the rence.
    There had beeen much talking and singing. I gathered it was seldom the rencers,
    save for those on a given island, met one another. Festival was important to
    them.
    Before the feast I had helped the women, cleaning the fish and dressing marsh
    gants, and then, later, turning spits for the roasted tarsks, roasted over
    rence-root fires kept on metal pans, elevated about the rence of the island by
    metal racks, themselves resting on larger pans.
    During most of the feast I have been used in the serving, particularly the
    serving of the girls who had competed for me, one of whom had won me, which one
    I did not know.
    I had carried about bowls of cut, fried fish, and wooden trays of roasted tarsk
    meat, and roasted gants, threaded on sticks, and rence cakes and porridges, and
    gourd flagons, many times replenished, of rence beer.
    Then, the rencers clapping their hands and singing, Telima approached me.
    “To the pole,” she said.
    I had seen the pole. It was not unlike the one to which I had been bound earlier
    in the day. There was a circular clearing amidst the feasters, of some forty
    feet in diameter, about which their circles formed. The pole, barkless, narrow,
    upright, thrust deep in the rence of the island, stood at the very center of the
    clearing, surrounded by the circles of feasting rencers.
    I went to the pole, and stood by it.
    She