“What is going on?” she cried.
“Be silent,” I told her.
She looked frightened.
“Stay within the kurdah, Slave,” I warned her. “And do not peer out.”
“Yes, Master,” she said.
I turned the kaiila, loosened the scimitar in the sheath.
“They are Aretai!” cried a man.
I thrust the scimitar back, deep, in the sheath.
I saw, some hundred yards from the caravan, the riders reined up. With them I saw Farouk, conversing with their captain. The caravan guards, on nervous, prancing kaiila, were behind him. Lances were high, butts in the stirrup sheath, like needles against the hills.
I rode my kaiila out a few steps, toward the men, then returned it to the caravan.
“They are Aretai,” said one of the drovers. The caravan, I knew, was bound for the Oasis of Nine Wells. It was held by Suleiman, master of a thousand lances. He was high pasha of the Aretai.
Several of the newcomers fanned out to flank the caravan, at large intervals. A cluster of them rode toward its head, another cluster toward its rear. Some twenty of them, with Farouk, and certain guards, began to work their way down the caravan, beast by beast, checking the drovers and kaiila tenders.
“What are they doing?” I asked a nearby drover.
“They are looking for Kavars,” he said.
“What will they do with them if they find them?” I asked.
“Kill them,” said the man.
I watched the men, on their kaiila, accompanied by Farouk, the caravan master, moving, man by man, towards us.
“They are the men of Suleiman,” said the drover, standing nearby, the rein of his kaiila in his hand. “They have come to give us escort to the Oasis of Nine Wells.”
Closer came the men, stopping, starting, moving from one man to the next, down the long line. They were led by a captain, with a red-bordered burnoose. Several of them held their scimitars, unsheathed, across the leather of their saddles.
“You are not a Kavar, are you?” asked the drover.
“No,” I said.
The riders were before us.
The drover threw back the hood of his burnoose, and pulled down the veil about his face. Beneath the burnoose he wore a skullcap. The rep-cloth veil was red; it had been soaked in a primitive dye, mixed from water and the mashed roots of the telekint; when he perspired, it had run; his face was stained. He thrust back the sleeve of his trail shirt.
The captain looked at me. “Sleeve,” he said. I thrust back the sleeve of my shirt, revealing my left forearm. It did not bear the blue scimitar, tattooed on the forearm of a Kavar boy at puberty.
“He is not Kavar,” said Farouk. He made as though to urge his mount further down the line.
The captain did not turn his mount. He continued to look at me. “Who are you?” he asked.
“I am not a Kavar,” I told him.
“He calls himself Hakim, of Tor,” said Farouk.
“Near the north gate of Tor,” said the captain, “there is a well. What is its name?”
“There is no well near the north gate of Tor,” I told him.
“What is the name of the well near the stalls of the saddle-makers?” asked the captain.
“The Well of the Fourth Passage Hand,” I told him. Water, more than a century ago, had been struck there, during the fourth passage hand, in the third year of the Administrator Shiraz, then Bey of Tor.
I was pleased that I had spent some days in Tor, before engaging in the lessons of the scimitar, learning the city. It is not wise to assume an identity which one cannot cognitively substantiate.
“Your accent,” said the captain, “is not of Tor.”
“I was not always of Tor,” I told him. “Originally I was from the north.”
“He is a Kavar spy,” said one of the lieutenants, at the side of the captain.
“Why are you bound for the Oasis of Nine Wells?” asked the captain.
“I have gems to sell Suleiman, your master,” said I, “for bricks of pressed dates.”
“Let us kill him,” urged the lieutenant.
“Is this your kurdah?” asked the captain, gesturing to the kurdah on the nearby kaiila.
“Yes,” I said.
In making their examination of the caravan they had, with their scimitars, opened the curtains of the kurdahs, for there might have been Kavars concealed therein. They had found, however, only girls, slaves, their right wrists and left ankles locked in five-link slave hobbles.
“What is in it?” he asked.
“Only a slave girl,” I told him.
He pressed his kaiila to the kurdah, and, with the tip of his scimitar, prepared to lift back the curtain to his right.
My scimitar, blade to blade, blocked his.
The men tensed. Fists clenched on the hilts of scimitars. Lances were lowered.
“Perhaps you conceal within a Kavar?” asked the captain.
With my own scimitar tip I brushed back the curtain. In the kurdah, kneeling, frightened, naked save for collar and veil, the girl shrank back.
“Thigh,” said the captain.
The girl turned her left thigh to him, showing her brand. “It is only a slave girl,” said the lieutenant, disappointed.
The captain smiled. He regarded the sweet, small, luscious, exposed slave curves of the girl. “But a pretty little one,” he said.
“Face-strip yourself,” I ordered her.
The girl, fingers behind the back of her head, at the golden string, lowered her veil. Her body had lifted beautifully when her hands had sought the string behind her head. I noted how she had done it. I grinned to myself. She was a slave girl and did not know it.
“Yes,” said the captain, “a pretty slave.” His eyes lingered on her unveiled mouth, then he drank in the rest of her, the whole of her. He looked at me. “I congratulate you on your slave,” he said.
I acknowledged his compliment, inclining and lifting my head.
“Perhaps, tonight,” he suggested, “she may dance for us.”
“She does not know how to dance,” I said. Then, to the girl, in English, I said, “You are not yet ready to dance for the pleasure of men.” She shrank back. “Of course not,” she said, in English. But I could see that, in spite of her anger, her denial, her eyes had been excited, curious. Doubtless she had, from time to time, wondered what it would be like, a collared slave girl, to dance naked in the sand, in the light of the campfire, laboring vulnerably under whip-threat to please Gorean warriors. It would be a long time, I thought, before the cool, white-skinned Alyena would beg, “Dance me! Dance me for the pleasure of men!”
“She is barbarian,” said I to the captain. “She speaks little Gorean. I told her she was not yet ready to dance for the pleasure of men.”
“A pity,” said he. In Gorean female dance the girl is expected, often, to satisfy, fully, whatever passions she succeeds in arousing in her audience. She is not permitted merely to excite, and flee away; when, at the conclusion of the swirling music, she flings herself to the floor at the mercy of free men, her dance is but half finished; she has yet to pay the price of her beauty.
“You must have her taught to dance,” said the captain.
“It is my intention,” I said.
“The whip,” said the captain, “can teach a girl many things.”
“Truly have you spoken,” I agreed.
“A pretty slave,” he said, and then turned his kaiila away, his men following, to continue his examination of the men of the caravan. As he turned his kaiila, the lieutenant, who had accompanied him, he who had asserted that I was a Kavar spy, he who had urged them to slay me, cast me a dark look. Then he, too, was with the rest, and Farouk, down the caravan line.
“It will not be necessary, Master,” said Alyena, loftily, in Gorean, “to use the whip on me, to make me dance.”
“I know,” I laughed, “—Slave!”
Her fists clenched.
“Veil
yourself,” I said.
She did so.
“Remain within,” I said, “and do not peer out.”
“Yes, Master,” she said.
I saw her eyes, blue, angry, over the yellow veil, and then I, laughing, with my scimitar, brushed down the right-hand curtain of the kurdah, it dropping, concealing her within, a slave girl.
Gradually, as a girl begins to realize she is a slave, truly, in a society in which there are slaves, and in which one can truly be just that, and without an escape, a fantastic transformation takes place in her. I could already see the beginnings of this transformation in Alyena. She was already becoming excited about her collar, and her ownership by men. She was becoming curious about them. She was becoming brazen, and shameless, as befits an article of property. She was now permitting herself thoughts and dreams that might have scandalized a free woman, but were for her, only a slave, quite appropriate. She was becoming petty, and pretty, and provocative. She was becoming sensual. She was becoming sly, clever, owned. Recently she had stooped to stealing a date. Though I had, of course, punished her for this, I was, secretly, quite pleased. It meant she was becoming a slave girl. Now I had seen her lift her body, beautifully, in removing her veil before men. I had seen her curiosity about what it would be to dance before them. She had informed me that it would not be necessary for me to use the leather on her, before she would apply herself to the lessons of the dances of slave girls. She thought herself, in herself, quite free, a slave only in name and collar, but in this she was deceiving herself. Let her keep that bit of pride, I thought, until some master takes it from her, and she, shattered, prone on the tiles, or submission mat, knows then, truly, she is only slave.
The lovely Alyena, though she did not know it, and would have refused to believe it, was coming along quite well.
She was becoming a slave girl.
5
What Occurred in the Palace of Suleiman Pasha
“What do you want for her?” asked Suleiman. He sat on cushions, on rugs of Tor.
He wore the kaffiyeh and agal, the cording that of the Aretai.
Before us, on the smooth, scarlet, inlaid floor, stood the girl. Her body was relaxed, but, nonetheless, held beautifully. She was looking away. She seemed bored, a bit insolent.
Low on her hips she wore, on a belt of rolled cloth, yellow dancing silk, in Turian drape, the thighs bare, the front right corner of the skirt thrust behind her to the left, the back left lower corner of the skirt thrust into the rolled belt at her right hip. She was barefoot; there were golden bangles, many of them, on her ankles, more on her left ankle. She wore a yellow-silk halter, hooked high, to accentuate the line of her beauty. She wore a gold, locked collar, and, looped about her neck, many light chains and pendants; on her wrists were many bracelets; on her upper arms, both left and right, were armlets, tight, there being again more on the left arm. She shook her head, her hair was loose.
“Prepare to please a free man,” I told the girl.
She was blond, blue-eyed, light-skinned.
She bent her knees, weight on her heels, lifted her hands, high over her head, wrists close together, back to back, on her thumbs and fingers, poised, tiny cymbals.
I nodded to the musicians. The music began. There was a bright flash of the tiny finger cymbals and Alyena danced for us.
“Do you like the slave?” I asked.
Suleiman watched her, through heavily lidded, narrow eyes. His face betrayed no emotion. “She is not without interest,” he said.
I removed from within my robes the belt in which I had concealed gems. I cut the stitching, which held the two sewn pieces together and, one by one, placed the gems on the low, inlaid, lacquered table behind which, cross-legged, sat Suleiman. He looked at the gems, taking them, one after the other, between the first finger and thumb of his right hand. Sometimes he held them to the light. I had made certain I knew, within marketing ranges, the values of the stones, and what, within reason, they would bring in weights of pressed dates.
To the right of Suleiman, languid, sat another man. He, too, wore kaffiyeh and agal, a kaftan of silk. He was a salt merchant, from Kasra.
“I regret,” said Ibn Saran, “that we could not travel together to Kasra, and then Tor.”
“I was called away swiftly,” said I, “on matters of business.”
“It was my loss,” smiled Ibn Saran, lifting to his lips a tiny, steaming cup of black wine.
Suleiman, with his finger, pushed back certain of the stones toward me.
I replaced these in my wallet. His greatest interest, apparently, lay in the sereem diamonds and opals.
Both sorts of stones were rare in the Tahari gem trade.
He lifted his eyes to Alyena. Her body seemed barely to move, yet it danced, as though against her will. It seemed she tried to hold herself immobile, as though fighting her own body, but yet that it forced her to dance, betraying her as a slave girl to the gaze of masters. Her eyes were shut, her teeth clenched on her lip, her face agonized; her arms were above her head, her fists clenched, and yet, seemingly in isolation, seemingly against her resolve, her body moved, forcing her to be beautiful before men. A fantastic intensity is achieved by this dancer’s artifice. It was not lost on Suleiman, or Ibn Saran.
I had waited over a month at the Oasis of Nine Wells before being granted an audience with Suleiman.
Ibn Saran, not taking his eyes from Alyena, lifted his finger. From one side a slave girl, barefoot, bangled, in sashed, diaphanous, trousered chalwar, gathered at the ankles, in tight, red-silk vest, with bare midriff, fled to him, with the tall, graceful, silvered pot containing the black wine. She was veiled. She knelt, replenishing the drink. Beneath her veil I saw the metal of her collar.
I had not thought to have such fortune. She did not look at me. She returned to her place with the pot of black wine.
Ibn Saran lifted another finger. From the side there hastened to him another girl, a fair-skinned, red-haired girl. She, too, wore veil, vest, chalwar, bangles, collar. She carried a tray, on which were various spoons and sugars. She knelt, placing her tray on the table. With a tiny spoon, its tip no more than a tenth of a hort in diameter, she placed four measures of white sugar, and six of yellow, in the cup; with two stirring spoons, one for the white sugar, another for the yellow, she stirred the beverage after each measure. She then held the cup to the side of her cheek, testing its temperature; Ibn Saran glanced at her; she, looking at him, timidly kissed the side of the cup and placed it before him. Then, her head down, she withdrew.
I did not turn to look back at the first girl, she who held the silvered pot.
I wondered if she belonged to Suleiman or Ibn Saran. I supposed to Suleiman, for it was within his palace that we sat, concerned with our business.
Suleiman, reluctantly, pushed two more stones back toward me. Not speaking, I put them in my wallet.
Alyena had taken beautifully to slave dance.
It was not unusual that a merchant might bring with him a dancing slave to a business meeting. Business in the Tahari is usually a leisurely affair, and the men of the Tahari enjoy having their senses pleased. They are no strangers to the uses and pleasures of slave girls. Certainly the two slaves serving the black wine were lovely, and, interestingly, neither was a typical Tahari girl. Both were white-skinned. The masters of the Tahari are fond of fair-complexioned slaves. That was one reason I had brought the former Miss Priscilla Blake-Allen with me.
I shall recount shortly how it came about that Alyena danced before us.
Let me briefly say that her training had begun on the march, in the evenings, under the tutelage of a drover, who had been a tavern czehar player, and two of Farouk’s dancing slaves, one of whom had been a brothel dancer in Ar. Her more serious training had taken place over the last several days at the oasis, which is, in effect, a town in the desert, with a population of several thousand. She had applied herself eagerly, for several Ahn a day. How slave she was, and yet how ignorant she seemed t
o be of this, struggling to remain a stranger to herself.
There were many subtleties of slave dance, and many dances, of different cities, and such, that would be unknown to her, but she had mastered many basic things. Too, it did not hurt that she was beautiful, and, though she may have been reluctant to acknowledge this, and she may not even have believed it, that she was eager to please men, and as a slave.
“Do you think,” I had asked her instructress yesterday evening, “she could dance before Suleiman Pasha?”
“Yes,” had said the woman.
“She is white-skinned,” I said.
“Suleiman Pasha,” she said, “likes white-skinned slaves.”
“Good,” I said.
Alyena had made excellent progress in slave dance. Too, she was inventive, creative. Like many slaves she would bring her uniqueness, her individuality, her personal character, her special talents and gifts, to her dance, to her bondage.
I glanced at the two white-skinned slaves who knelt to the side, in chalwar and vest, lightly veiled, who attended to the service of the black wine. One in particular I noted, she who was charged with the silver vessel that contained the black wine.
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