by John Norman
This morning, before dawn, I had been put ashore some pasangs upriver. I had gone a pasang inland to avoid river tharlarion and proceeded, paralleling the river, toward Victoria. I had come to the town an Ahn ago.
"Candies! Candies!" called a veiled free woman. She carried candies on a tray, held about her neck by a broad strap.
"Hot meat!" called another vendor. "Hot meat!"
"Fresh vegetables here!" called a woman.
"The milk of verr, the eggs of vulos!" I heard call.
Another merchant brushed past me. He was followed by a stately brunette in a brief tunic, collared, carrying a bundle on her head.
I stepped aside as a string of eight peasants, with bundles of Sa-Tarna grain on their shoulders, made their way toward the wharves.
"Now that is what I call really hot meat," a man was saying.
I heard a woman gasping. I looked down. To one side, on her back on the boards, her knees drawn up, her left ankle roped to her left wrist, her right ankle roped to her right wrist, there lay a slave girl. "Please, Masters," whimpered the girl, looking up. "Touch me, Masters." A fat fellow sat on a small stool. He held a light chain, which was attached to her collar. She had been cruelly aroused, but not satisfied. "Please, Masters," she begged. "A tarsk bit for her use," said the fat fellow. I looked down upon her. Then I heard a tarsk bit thrown into the copper bowl beside her. A leather worker pushed past me, crouching beside the slave. Piteously she lifted her body to him.
"Jewelry!" I heard. "Jewelry!"
Nearby there were four girls in a plank collar. This is formed from two boards into which matching semicircles have been cut. The two boards are connected and supported by five flat, sliding U-irons; when the U-irons are slid back, the collar is opened. When they are slid into place, and the two leaves are bolted together, the collar is closed. Two hasps with staples, secured with padlocks, occur, too, at opposite ends of the planks. These lock the collar. The four girls in the plank collar were kneeling, waiting for their master to conduct some business. He was of the peasants. They were nude. Their hands were tied behind their backs.
"When, fleeing from the brigands, I advised seeking refuge in the peasant village," said one, "I did not realize they would take us."
"Peasants are not too fond, generally, of free persons from the high cities," said one of them.
"We were not of their village," said another.
"Doubtless they will use the proceeds from our sale to supplement their income," said one of them.
"If they do not drink it up in the paga taverns first," said the second girl, bitterly.
"We are free women," said the first girl, struggling in the thongs. "They cannot do this to us!"
"Think such thoughts while you may," said the fourth girl. "We are soon to be branded slaves."
"Look at that disgusting girl," said the second girl, indicating with her head the moaning, writhing slave with the leather worker.
"Yes," said the fourth girl.
"Can they make me do that?" asked the second girl, frightened.
"They can make you do anything, my dear," said the fourth girl.
"Jewelry!" I heard. "Jewelry!"
I stepped away to one side and stopped before a blanket spread out on the boards. On the blanket, spread out, were dozens of pins and brooches, clasps and buckles, rings and necklaces, and bracelets and earrings, and bangles and armlets, and body chains. A pleasant-looking fellow in a woolen tunic sat cross-legged behind the blanket.
"Buy jewelry here," said he. "It is cheap and attractive. Bedeck your slaves."
"See, Master?" asked a girl kneeling at his side, collared, nude, lifting her arms. She was almost covered with jewelry. About her throat alone there must have been twenty necklaces. She lifted the necklaces, causing them to rustle and shimmer, holding them forth to me in her small hands. Then she extended her right arm that I might see the armlets, bracelets and rings which scarcely permitted her flesh to be seen.
"Buy some for your slave," said the man. "Here," said he, lifting a necklace from the blanket. "This was taken from a free woman, now scrubbing stones in the plaza of Iphicrates."
"I do not have a slave," I said.
"I will sell you this one," said he, indicating the display slave at his side, "for a silver tarsk."
"Buy me, Master," she laughed. "I am pretty. I work hard. I can well please a man in the furs."
"It is true," smiled the fellow.
"Surely women can be purchased more cheaply in Victoria than a silver tarsk," I smiled.
"True," grinned the fellow. I saw that he had not wished, truly, to sell her.
"You mentioned," I said, "that this necklace had been taken from a free woman."
"By a pirate," he said.
"You speak of this openly," I observed.
"This is Victoria," said he.
"May I inquire as to what crew it was of which that pirate was a member?" I asked.
"Of that of Polyclitus," said he. "Their stronghold is near Turmus."
"Doubtless they also harry the trade routes circumventing the delta of the Vosk?" I asked.
"Occasionally," he said. "Indeed, it was there that they picked up this pretty little plum." He indicated the girl at his side. "Would you believe that she was once the daughter of a rich merchant?" he asked.
"It seems incredible," I said.
"He has trained me well to the collar," she purred, kissing at his arm.
"It can be done with any woman," he said.
"Are you familiar with a pirate named Kliomenes?" I asked. I hoped my voice did not betray undue interest.
"He is a bad fellow," said the man. "He is a lieutenant to Policrates."
"Do you know if he is now in Victoria?" I asked.
"Yes," said the man. "He has come to Victoria to sell goods and slaves."
"Where are these to be sold?" I asked.
"The goods have already been sold," said the man, "at the merchant wharves."
"And the slaves?" I asked.
"They are to be sold tonight," said he, "at the sales barn of Lysander."
"I shall take this body chain," I said to the man, indicating one of the body chains on the blanket.
"But I thought you had no slave?" he asked.
"I would still like to thank you, somehow," I said. "You have been very helpful."
"It is a tarsk bit," he said.
The loop of the body chain was some five feet in length. It was made to loop the throat of a woman several times, or, by alternative windings, to bedeck her body in a variety of fashions. The chain was not heavy, but, too, it was not light. It had a solid heft in one's hand. It was closely meshed and strong. It could be used, if a man wished, and perfectly, for purposes of slave security. It was decorated sensuously with colorful wooden beads, semiprecious stones and bits of leather. Detachable, but now attached to the chain at one point were two sets of clips, one of snap clips and one of lock clips. It is by means of these clips that the chain can be transformed from a simple piece of slave jewelry into a sturdy and effective device of slave restraint.
I put down the tarsk bit, and the man took it, and slipped it into his pouch.
"Do not give that to a free woman," he grinned.
"It is pretty," I said. I looped it several times, and put it in my pouch.
"It is a body chain," he said.
"It is still pretty," I said. I wondered why I had bought it. It was pretty, surely. Perhaps that was why I had bought it.
"When I was free," said the girl, "I could not wear such things."
"They are not for free women," said the man.
"No, Master," she said, quickly. "But now," she said, "I may, with my master's permission, make myself as beautiful and exciting as I can."
"It is I who can decide what it is which you can wear," he said.
"Yes, Master," she smiled, "and even if I am permitted to wear anything at all."
"And do not forget it," he said.
"No, Master," she s
aid.
"Tonight," I said, "Kliomenes puts his wares upon the block at the sales barn of Lysander."
"Yes," said the man.
"I thank you," I said, "and I wish you well."
"I, too, wish you well," said he.
I then took my way up a narrow street leading into Victoria.
"Good hunting in the slave market!" called the man after me.
"Thank you," I said. I smiled to myself. Then I continued on my way, wondering why I had purchased so strange an item as a body chain, a form of jewelry obviously designed for the body of a female slave.
I Hurry to the Sales Barn of Lysander
8
I Have a Close Call in the Tavern of Tasdron;
I Hurry to the Sales Barn of Lysander
"Are there any more challengers?" I asked, wiping the sweat and sand from my face with my forearm.
I had tallied my resources, prior to coming to the tavern of Tasdron, off the avenue of Lycurgus, and found them to amount to only seventy copper tarsks, including five tarsks which I had happily, and unexpectedly, received, the captain being a good fellow, for acting as an oarsman from Fina to the vicinity of Victoria. I did not know how much a slave might go for in the market of Lysander, but I wished to have enough to be confident that I could bid realistically and effectively on one item of merchandise, should it be offered to the public.
I spit down into the sand. I rubbed my hands on my thighs.
I had fought seven fellows, and finished them off with a dispatch which, it seemed to me, might have pleased even Kenneth and Barus, my former mentors in such matters. I might have taken more time and enticed more challengers to face me but I wished to be at the market of Lysander when the biddings began. As it was I was not displeased. I had managed to accumulate two silver tarsks and some sixteen copper tarsks. In Victoria I was confident I would encounter no guardsmen who, at the behest of honest folk, might encourage me to take my leave at an early convenience.
"Are there any more challengers?" I inquired.
The room was quiet. I bent down to a small table near the sand to gather in my winnings.
"A silver tarsk," said a voice, not a pleasant one.
I straightened up.
A fellow was now standing, some fifty feet across the room. I had seen the table there earlier. About it had sat some seven or eight fellows, unshaven, dour chaps. Several of them were scarred. Two wore earrings. More than one wore a handkerchief knotted about his head, in the manner of some oarsmen, that their heads be protected from the sun. All were armed.
"Kind Sirs, no!" called out Tasdron, the tavern's proprietor.
There was a sudden sound, that of a short metal blade slipping from a sheath.
"A silver tarsk," said the fellow again, holding the drawn blade. Goreans, I knew, seldom drew steel unless they intended to make use of it. I swallowed hard.
"I am not familiar with steel," I said, as pleasantly as I could manage.
"You should not carry it, then," said the man. Several of his fellows laughed.
"The combat, as has been made clear," said Tasdron, his voice shaking, "is to be unarmed."
"Pick up your blade," said the fellow to me. I saw the point of the short sword move slightly. He gestured to my clothes, and pouch and blade, which lay nearby.
"I cannot fight you with steel," I said. "I am not skilled with it."
"Run," whispered Tasdron.
"Close the exits," said the fellow to some of the men with him. Four of them rose up, one going to the side door, one to the door to the kitchen, and two to the main threshold. They stood there. Their steel, too, was now drawn. At the table, still sitting, were two other men. One of them seemed in his presence as though he might be the group's leader. He observed me, and quaffed paga.
"Pick up your blade," said the fellow.
"No," I said.
"Very well," said he. "The choice is yours." He stepped about his table and then, carefully, watching me, advanced. He stopped about ten feet from me. Then, suddenly, he kicked a table from in front of him to the side, clearing a path to me. Two men scrambled away from the table. A paga slave, cowering in the background, screamed.
"I am unarmed," I said.
He advanced another step. I watched the point of that blade move.
"He is new in Victoria," said Tasdron, desperately. "Take his clothes, his money, his things. Let him live!"
But the fellow did not even glance at Tasdron. He took another step closer.
I backed away, and then felt the tables behind me, against my legs.
"I am unarmed," I said.
The fellow grinned, and advanced another step.
"Permit me to seize up my weapon," I said.
He grinned again, and advanced yet another step. I knew I did not have time to turn and clutch at the weapon in its sheath on the table, with my pouch and clothes, and even had I been able to reach it and remove it from the sheath I did not think it would do me much good. I saw how this man handled steel, and I saw that the blade itself was much marked. It had seen a plenitude of combat. Before him, even with the blade in my grasp, I would have been, I knew, for all practical purposes, defenseless.
"I am unarmed," I said. "Is it your intention to kill me in cold blood?"
"Yes," said the fellow.
"Why?" I asked.
"It will give me pleasure," he said. I saw the blade draw back.
"Hold!" called a voice.
The fellow stepped back, and looked past me. I turned about. There, about twenty feet away, in a dirty woolen himation, stood a tall, unshaven man. Though he seemed disreputable he stood at that moment very straight.
"Do you, Fellow," said he, addressing me, "desire a champion?"
The man was armed. Over his left shoulder there hung a leather sheath. He had not deigned, however, to draw the blade.
"Who are you?" asked the fellow who had been threatening me.
"Do you desire a champion?" asked the man of me.
"Yes," I said.
"Who are you?" demanded the fellow who had been threatening me.
"Do you force me to draw my blade?" asked the tall man. The hair on the back of my neck rose when he had said this.
"Who are you?" demanded the man who had threatened me, taking another step back.
The man did not speak. Rather, with one hand, he threw back the himation, over his shoulders. There was a cry in the tavern.
I saw that the fellow wore the scarlet of the warrior.
"No," said the man who had been threatening me. "I do not force you to draw your blade." He then backed away. When he reached his table he thrust his own blade angrily into his sheath. He then, with the fellows who had guarded the doors, left the tavern.
"Paga, paga for all!" called Tasdron. Paga slaves rushed to pour paga. "Music!" he called. Five musicians, who had been near the kitchen, hurried to their places. Tasdron, too, clapped his hands twice and a dancing slave, portions of her body painted, ran to the sand.
Unsteadily I went to the table of the tall man. He seemed to pay me small attention. When the girl poured him paga his hand shook as he reached for it. He lifted it, suddenly, spilling some to the table, to his lips. He was shaking. "I owe you my life," I said. "Thank you." "Go away," he said. His eyes then seemed glazed. No longer did he seem so proud and strong as he had before, in that brief moment when he had confronted the fellow who had threatened me. His hands shook on the paga goblet. "Go away," he said.
"I see that you still wear the scarlet, Callimachus," said a voice.
"Do not mock me," said the man at the table.
I saw that he who spoke was he whom I had taken to be the leader of the ruffians at the far table, one of whose number had threatened me. He himself had neither supported nor attempted to deter the fellow who had threatened me. He held himself above squabbles in common taverns, I gathered. I took him to be a man of some importance.
"It has been a long time since we met in the vicinity of Port Cos," said the fello
w who had come to the table.
The man at the table, sitting, he who had saved me, held the goblet of paga, and said nothing.
"This part of the river," said the standing man, "is mine." Then he looked down at the sitting fellow. "I bear you no hard feelings for Port Cos," he said.
The sitting man drank. His hands were unsteady.
"You always were a courageous fellow, Callimachus," said the standing man. "I always admired that in you. Had you not been concerned to keep the codes, you might have gone far. I might have found a position for you even in my organization."
"Instead," said the man sitting at the table, "we met at Port Cos."
"Your gamble this night was successful," said the standing man. "I would advise against similar boldnesses in the future, however."
The sitting man drank.
"Fortunately for you, my dear Callimachus, my friend Kliomenes, the disagreeable fellow who left the tavern earlier, does not know you. He does not know, as I do, that your eye is no longer as sharp as once it was, that your hand has lost its cunning, that you are now ruined and fallen, that the scarlet is now but meaningless on your body, naught but a remembrance, an empty recollection of a vanished glory."
The sitting man again drank.
"If he knew you as I do," said the standing man, "you would now be dead."
The sitting man looked into the goblet, now empty, on the table. His hands clutched it. His fingers were white. His eyes seemed empty. His cheeks, unshaven, were pale and hollow.
"Paga!" called the standing man. "Paga!" A blond girl, nude, with a string of pearls wound about her steel collar, ran to the table and, from the bronze vessel, on its strap, about her shoulder, poured paga into the goblet before the seated man. The fellow who stood by the table, scarcely noticing the girl, placed a tarsk bit in her mouth, and she fled back to the counter where, under the eye of a paga attendant, she spit the coin into a copper bowl. There seemed to me something familiar about the girl, but I could not place it.
"Drink, Callimachus," said the standing man. "Drink."
The seated man, unsteadily, lifted the paga to his lips.
Then he who had stood by the table turned about and left. I backed away from the table.