Surely you have some money saved," I said.
"Not enough," he said. "We live from day to day. Sometimes there is nothing to eat."
"More than a silver tarsk is actually involved, Captain," said the officer. "There is the matter of the last two years, as well, considerations of interest, and the customary emluments."
"I am runed," said Boots Tarsk-Bit.
"Let us not be hasty, officer," I said. "Boots Tarsk-Bit is an old friend of mine, a friend from long ago."
Boots looked at me, startled. Then he nodded, earnestly. We had known one another for quite some time now, at least ten Ehn.
"If you wish, Captain," smiled the officer, "I shall not pursue the matter further." He knew me. He had been with the fleet on the 25th of Se'Kara.
"Boots, of course, as is well known," I said, "is an honest fellow."
Boots looked startled.
"He always pays his debts," I assured the officer.
"I do?" asked Boots. "I do!" he then said quickly, firmly, to the officer.
"So pay the man," I said.
"With what?" inquired Boots, speaking to me in an intense whisper.
"With your earnings," I told him.
"They are not even ten tarsks!" hissed Boots to me, his eyes bulging.
"Check the pots of your Bina and Brigella," I said.
"I have checked them," He said.
"Check them again," I said.
He turned away, and then turned back, to stopp down and pick up the copper pot by the kaissa table.
"Leave it," I said.
He shrugged and then, straightening up, took his leave.
"he will doubtless be back for it," smiled the officer.
"He cannot, in any event, escape from the city," said one of the guards.
I reached down and picked up the pot from beside the kaissa table.
I looked down at the slave kneeling on the tiels of the piazza beside me, naked and in her collar, clutching the pastry. "You may now eat the pastry," I said. "You may now finish it." "Thank you, Master," she said, happily. She had now been under my total command for something like half of an Ahn.
I put three silver tarsks into the pot. "These cover the licesneing fees for three years," I said. It then put another silver tarsk into the pot. "This," I said, "should more than cover any interst due on the debts outstanding."
"More than enough," granted the officer.
"This tarsk," I then said, slipping it into the pot, "is for the Master of Revels."
"You are most generous," Captain," said the officer, impressed. "That is more than is normally expected."
"And this tarsk," I said, "is for you and your men."
"That is not necessary, Captain," protested the officer.
The coin dropped into the pot. "It is carnival," I smiled.
"Thank you, Captain," said the officer.
"Thank you, Captain," said the guards.
I replaced the copper pot beside the kaissa table.
I looked down at the slave. "Have you finished the pastry?" I asked.
"Yes, Master," seh smiled.
"Clean your fingers. Suck and lick them," I said.
"Yes, Master," she said. I was growing hot for her. I must soon get her to a rack.
"It is no use, kind sirs," said Boots Tarsk-Bit, returning, carrying the two empty coin bowls. "They are empty."
"What of that pot?" asked the officer, indicating the one beside the kaissa table. "That contains earnings accruing to your troupe, does it not, from your kaissa booth?"
"Alas, it contains only three tarsk bits," lamented Boots Tarsk-Bit.
"Do your trust him?" asked the officer of one of the guards.
"Not I, Sir," responded the guard.
"Open it," said the officer.
"Very well," shrugged Boots. Then, as he picked up the kettle, a strange looke suddenly came over his face. She shook it. From within it came the unmistakable dlink of several coins.
Feverishly he drew a key out of his wallet. In a moment he had unlocked the padlock on the chain and drawn it, sliding through the handles, rattling, free. He removed the lid from the kettle.
"Sly scamp, rotund rogue," scolded the officer. "You have been holding out on us."
Boots, his euyes wide, sorted through the coins in the pot.
"What is there?" asked the officer.
"Three tarsk bits," said Boots, "-and five silver tarsks."
"Three silver tarsks for licensing fees, present and past, one for interest, and one for the Master of Revels," said the officer.
Boots counted out the coins and handed them to the officer.
"Is there nothing for myself and my men?" asked the officer.
Boots drew out the last silver tarsk out of his sleeve and, sheepishly, handed it to the officer. I had not seen him place it there. He had done it very skillfully.
The girl at my feet now held my leg in her arms and kissed at my leg, whimpering.
"It seems a slave is ready for pleasure," grinned the officer, looking at me.
"Perhaps," I said, as though nonchalantly.
"The rack, Master," she whimpered. "Please take me to a rack!"
"I see that you wear the favor of a free woman," observed the officer. He referred to the rich, light, colorful scarf thrust through he eyelet of my robes.
"Yes," I said. I recalled the richly robed, veiled, wheedling free woman whom I had permitted to place it there. What a churl I would have been, considering how prettily she had begged, and she a free woman, not to have accepted it.
"Take me to the rack, Master, please, I beg it!" said the girl at my feet.
"I see that you, too, have accepted the favor of a free woman," I said.
"Yes," he said, grinning. The favor he wore was different from mine, both in border and color. In the game of Favors, of course, the favors are supposedly unique to the given woman, in pattern, material, texture, color, shape, decoration, and so forth. If they were not unique in this fashion they could not act as practical counters in the game. Similarly, of course, they would be less efficient in manifesting the results of the deeper competitions involved, those competitions in which women desperately strive against one another, each to prove themselves more desirable to men than the others. Each woman desires to be more pleasing to men than the others. This is significant. It is in their nature.
"It is interesting to me that free women play the game of Favors," I said.
"It gives them a way of flirting," he said. "Too it gives them an opportunity to put themselves, in a way, at teh mercy of the male, to engage in petitioning behaviour, suing for his indulgence. In this it is not difficult to see a form of symbolic submission, a making of themselves dependent on his will. Too, of course, it gives them a way of testing their desirability and publicly procliaming, or advertising, it."
"luscious, vain creatures," I observed. I myself had earlier speculated along these lines. To be sure, the game of Favors, like most games, customs and practices, was undoubtedly complex and multiply motivated. Too, sometimes things take on additional meanings and values as they are enriched in a a historical tradition ormore deeply or variously interpreted in different contexts.
"It also, of course, gives them a way of establishing ranking among themselves," said the officer, "which is probably about the best they can do until they find themselves enslaved, put naked on blocks and priced."
"I agree," I said. That certain games, such as that of Favors, provided a mechanism for establishing desirability ranking among females, something in which they seemed much interested, seemed clear.
"What do you think of free women?" asked the officer.
"I didn't know there were any, really," I said. Goreans have a theory that there are only two sorts of women, slaves and slaves.
"You know what I mean," he said.
"I suppose they are all right," I said. They were all right, I supposed.