by John Norman
The most interesting aspect of her sale occurred late in the sale, when the auctioneer chose to display her slave reflexes.
As I had anticipated, they proved excellent.
How startled and distressed she was!
How foolish, did she still think herself free?
It was interesting to consider what might be her nature later, once her slave fires had been ignited.
I could conceive of her crawling on her belly to a master, tears in her eyes, begging to be touched.
It is pleasant to own such a woman.
What man does not want one?
I wondered if she would be domestically suitable, say, could she sew, or cook, such things. Some attention to such things is commonly involved in their training. To be sure, the principal object of a slave’s training is to teach her to give inordinate sexual pleasure to a master.
It is primarily what she is for.
I did not wonder about her heat. She would be a hot slave. Periodically, recurrently, helplessly, she would find herself in desperate sexual need. She would soften and oil at a casual glance. Her need would run down her thighs. She would proffer a master a juicy pudding, bubbling and delicious. She would be a pleasant confection, a delightful candy, a moaning, gasping tasta squirming on its stick.
And I wondered, again, if she could sew, or cook, such things.
If her efforts were unsatisfactory in such ways, or others, her grooming, her posture and grace, the care of a domicile, her shopping, or such, one might reduce, or deny her, the touch of the master, of which touch, at that time, she would be in desperate need.
The slave must learn, of course, to please the master, unquestioningly, and instantaneously, in all ways.
His satisfaction is paramount, not hers.
Still, a hot slave is a precious possession. It is one of the great pleasures of the mastery to play with his toy, to patiently lick, kiss, and caress his property, it perhaps helplessly bound or chained, to turn it into a writhing, pleading, sobbing, subdued, owned, gasping, bucking, lovely, helpless, ecstatic beast.
She went for forty-eight copper tarsks, which was about what I thought she would bring, something in the nature of a half tarsk, of silver.
Some weeks before, as I had been given to understand, the forces of Cos, Tyros, and their allies, and hirelings, most in mercenary bands, had withdrawn from Ar. The accounts of this were various. It was claimed by some that the work of the occupying forces was done, that Ar had been taught her lesson, her walls razed and her coffers looted, that she was now impoverished, docile, and subdued, and was no longer a threat to the civilized cities. Accordingly, the occupying forces had executed an orderly withdrawal, one supposedly scheduled for months aforehand. Others claimed that the troops of Cos and Tyros, and the others, had marched from the city, over streets carpeted with blossoms, amidst shouts of joy and flung garlands, the tribute of a grateful populace, freed from the gross despotisms and tyrannies of the past. And some said that like a storm at sea, one without warning, the red waves of revolt had surged into the streets, pouring forth from hovels and sewers, from taverns and stables, from cellars and insulae, that thousands of citizens, many armed only with clubs and stones, had rushed forth, intent upon the blood of invaders and traitors. Marlenus, Ubar of Ubars, it was said, had returned to Ar.
In any event, several of the coastal cities and towns, and, in particular, Brundisium, were now filled with what might, I suppose, be accounted refugees. It was claimed by some that the retreat from Ar had been a rout, precipitous and disorderly, and, in some cases, even disciplined troops had cast aside their shields and fled for their lives. Were it not for the ruination of her walls, thousands might have been unable to escape the city, to the open fields beyond. Countless dead would have been heaped at the gates. As it was, men of Ar tried to prevent the remnants of the occupying forces fleeing and hundreds of sympathizers and collaborators from leaving the city. Bands of mercenaries not quartered outside the city often had to fight their way to the countryside. Even in the open fields they were pursued and hunted, sometimes from the sky by tarnsmen of Ar, no longer enrolled in the sorry task of protecting uniformed looters and policing a sullen, resentful citizenry with which they shared a Home Stone. For pasangs about the city the fields were littered with feasting for scavenging jards. Within the city long proscription lists were posted, and traitors and traitresses were hunted down, house to house. Hundreds of impaling spears were adorned with writhing victims. Few free traitresses, or traitresses who long remained free, escaped the city. The common price for their license to accompany armed, fleeing men, unwilling to accept the burden of conducting free women, was their stripping and the collar. Many were currently being offered in the markets of Brundisium and other coastal cities. Some of those vended in the recent sale I had attended were former high women of Ar, now naked properties worth only what men were willing to pay for them. Many of the refugees still flooding into Brundisium were ragged, exhausted, and half-starved. Some had sold even their swords. Others had formed larger or smaller outlaw bands and prowled the roads, producing a realm of peril and anarchy for a hundred pasangs about. Passage to Tyros or Cos was costly, and many of Brundisium’s newcomers were destitute. Some, armed with clubs, hunted urts by the wharves. Two men had been killed for stealing a fish. It was said, too, that various towns and cities, even villages, in the island ubarates themselves were not enthusiastic about the turn of events, that they were less than willing to welcome the return of defeated, penurious veterans. Could honor be retained in the face of defeat, even rout? If the stories were true, of triumph, and such, where was their wealth, their spoils? Surely, for whatever reason, or reasons, justified or unjustified, an inhospitable reception not unoften awaited them. Some, even regulars managing to return to the islands, found themselves isolated and despised, denied work and a post. “Where is your shield,” they might be asked, “where is your sword?” In Brundisium, on the other hand, a busy port, with access to the northern and southern coastal trade, and an access to the major island ubarates westward, Cos and Tyros, there was considerable prosperity, for the coin that leaves one purse will soon find a home in another.
But beyond the influx of refugees, more streaming in each day, the crowding, the begging, the closing of hiring tables, the raiding of garbage troughs, the sleeping in cold, damp, dangerous streets, the discordant accounts of doings to the south and east, the racing about of rumors, it was clear that something different and unusual was occurring in Brundisium, something apart from refugees, apart from remote dislocations, apart from proscriptions and impaling spears, apart from tumult and flight, apart from red grass and bloodied stones, apart from hazard and vengeance, apart from political rearrangements, apart from exchanges of power wherein, as it is said, the “streets run with blood.”
This had to do with those spoken of as the Pani.
There must be two or three hundred of them in Brundisium, and perhaps many more in the north, in their unusual garb, with their dark, keen eyes, their black hair drawn back and knotted behind their head, men lithe and graceful, like panthers, taciturn, not mingling, avoiding the taverns, equipped with their unfamiliar weaponry.
It was not clear from whence these strange warriors, and their cohorts and partisans, were derived. Some, from the eyes, said they were Tuchuks, but others who had had the fortune, or misfortune, of encountering Tuchuks, as some looted, ransomed merchants, survivors of raided caravans, and such, denied this. Surely none wore the colorful, ritual, exploit scarring of the Tuchuks. Some said they came from the World’s End, but, as is known, the world ends at the farther islands, and beyond them is nothing. It was alleged they came from the Plains of Turia, far south of Bazi and Schendi, or from the Barrens to the east, but, if such things are so, why was there no heralding of their approach, no records of their passage?
In any event many are in Brundisium.
They speak a comprehensible dialect of Gorean, one with which I am not familiar. They work
largely through agents. They have gold, apparently much gold. Some serious project is afoot. Their agents are hiring ships, and recruiting men, many ships, many men. Some ships, with crews, and complements of armed men, have already left port, bound north. They are laying in extensive supplies. Guarded compounds near the wharves are stacked with boxes, barrels, bales, clay vessels, like blunt-bottomed amphorae, tied together by the handles, bulging sacks, and weighty crates. It is as though some great voyage was contemplated, but the ships are small coasters, many of which one might not even risk to Temos or Jad, and they seem to move north. What might be in the northern forests, or Torvaldsland, to warrant this mighty movement of men and supplies? Do they think to found a city at the mouth of some far river, say, the Laurius or the remote Alexandra? Such locations would seem remote and inauspicious. Too, interestingly, many of the supplies seem to be war supplies, and naval stores. Why would one require naval stores to found a city, or even a village? Other goods, one supposes, would suggest trading, or the raid. There are bundles of silk, coils of wire, brass lamps, jars of ointment and salve, flat boxes of cosmetics; and poles on which are strung shackles and slave chain. Do they truly think there is that much slave fruit in the north? And, besides, they are already buying slaves. They are buying them from the shelves, from the wharf cages, the dock markets, and the house markets. Agents of Pani, for example, had purchased several of the girls in the recent sale I had witnessed, including the one whom I had found of some negligible interest, whom I had originally seen in a large emporium on another world. She would not remember me, though it was I who brought her to the collar and whip, where she, and such as she, belong. Some were even purchased at the gates, off their rope coffles, as bandits, or refugees, had brought them in. It was not fully clear why these purchases, or so many of them, had been made. If they were to be resold there seemed little point in taking them north. Better markets were elsewhere. Perhaps they were for gifts or trade goods. But to whom, and where? Certainly a lovely female makes a splendid gift, and, in many situations, can be bartered to one’s advantage. But who is, say, to buy them in the north, and so many? To be sure, many men were taking ship north, and they might be intended for them, if not for outright purchasing, for brothels, slave houses, or taverns. Men will want their slaves. Many of the purchased slaves were being held in the vicinity of the docks, in holding areas, the basements of warehouses, and such. In some places, through the high, narrow, barred windows in the walls, through which light may filter, they would hear the calls of longshoremen, their loading chants, the rumble of wheels on the planks, the creak of timbers, the stirring of slack canvas on a round ship, the water washing against the pilings.
I am familiar with such places as I have brought slaves to them. How they moan and cry out, and sob, when herded down the stairs to the straw, and rings! It is not pleasant to be confined in such a place, for they are often dark, cold, and damp, the straw soiled, the chains heavy. It was to such a place that a particular slave might have been brought.
I did not know.
How pleased they are then to be brought into the light, and the keeping of masters!
As I have mentioned, the agents of the Pani were recruiting. One might have supposed then, under the current circumstances in Brundisium, with the business to the southeast, the accompanying influx of refugees, and such, that the misery in Brundisium, the crowding and hunger, would have been muchly relieved, as men were taken into fee, but, unfortunately, that was only partly the case. For better or for worse, the agents of the Pani had not set up hiring tables, but conducted matters discreetly, if not secretly. They made inquiries, as they could, and seemed to scout men. They frequented the taverns and the lower dock areas, and would approach a prospect, two or three at a time, often in the darkness. Sometimes swords crossed. They seemed most interested in men who had retained their weaponry, and their pride. On the other hand, honor, the allegiance to a Home Stone, the promise of loyalty, and such, did not seem a requirement for the service contemplated. Some prospects they bought from prison for gold, some waiting execution. They seemed particularly interested in strong, agile, savage, dangerous men. I had the impression they were intent to fee men who could handle blades well and ask few questions with respect to their unsheathing. It was my impression that in some respects they were very little particular in their choices. They were not reluctant, it seems, to recruit vagabonds, likely bandits, rogue mercenaries, cutthroats, boasters, liars, gamblers, and thieves. Such men could be kept in line, I was sure, only by paga, gold, the promise of women, and an uncompromised discipline as swift and merciless as the strike of an ost. Accordingly, many who were approached, even when starving, refused to be wooed even by the golden staters of Brundisium when it became clear to them the likely nature of many of their companions. One does not wish to have a foe at one’s back or side. Others declined service when their would-be recruiters refused to reveal to them the length and nature of the service intended, and even its location. Indeed, I think that many, perhaps most, of the recruiters did not know the answers to such questions themselves. It was known that the first leg of their journey would take them north, somewhere north. What might occur there, or thereafter, was unclear. More frighteningly, at least to many, was the level of weapon skills which were being sought. Many potential recruits were put to the test of arms, pitted against one another, only the winner to be accepted. Some men killed more than one man to win their place.
“The cards have been unkind to you,” said a voice.
“That is not unusual, of late,” I said.
“More paga?” she asked.
“He has had enough,” said the voice.
“Where are you from?” I asked.
“Asperiche,” she said.
“How came you here?” I asked.
“I was taken in my village,” she said, “by raiding corsairs from Port Kar, and later sold south.”
“How much did you bring?” I asked.
“Two silver tarsks,” she said.
“Here?” I asked.
“Yes, Master,” she said.
“When?” I asked.
“The last passage hand,” she said.
“Summon the proprietor’s man, and a whip,” I said.
“Master?” she asked.
“In the current market you would bring no more than thirty-five, copper,” I said.
Trembling, she knelt, tears in her eyes. “Forgive me, Master,” she said.
I motioned her away, impatiently, clumsily.
“Thank you, Master,” she said, and leapt up and fled, with a flash of bells, from the small, round table, at which I sat, cross-legged.
“Are you weak?” asked the voice. “Why did you not have her lashed?”
“Do you think I am weak?” I asked.
He regarded me, for a moment. “No,” he said.
“I am unarmed,” I said.
“But weapons are checked at the door,” he said.
“They are entitled to their vanity,” I said.
I looked after her. The bells were on her left ankle. They were all she wore, other than her collar. It was not a high tavern.
“How did you know she was lying?” he asked.
“The market, the season,” I said.
“It seems you are an excellent judge of such things,” he said.
“Of such things?” I asked.
“The likely price of collar-meat,” he said.
“I am of the Merchants,” I said.
“The Slavers,” he said.
I shrugged.
“The Slavers,” he said.
“Very well, the Slavers,” I said. We regard ourselves as a subcaste of the Merchants. Do we not acquire, and buy, and sell? What difference is there, other than the nature of the goods handled?
“Slavers,” said he, “are cunning, and skilled with weapons.”
“Much like the scarlet caste,” I said.
“Or the black caste,” he said.
“I am not a
n assassin,” I said. I wondered if he were.
“Slavers must plan, and raid, and seize,” he said. “Often they must fight their way into a house, or pleasure garden, and fight their way free.”
“I have met men on the bridges,” I said. To be sure, there seemed little danger on the ships, the sky ships, save at departure and arrival, leaving or re-entering the atmosphere. There seemed little danger, too, on the slave world. They did not, it seemed, protect their women. Perhaps they did not realize their value.
“You have had too much to drink,” he said.
“You followed me from the gambling house,” I said.
“You lost heavily,” he said. “Perhaps tonight you will feed from the garbage troughs.”
“Perhaps,” I said. “Who are you?”
“One who places a golden stater on a table,” he said.
I looked at the small, round, golden disk. The staters of Brundisium are prized on the Streets of Coins in a hundred cities. They constitute one of Ar’s most coveted coinages.
“I am not an assassin,” I said.
“I, and others,” he said, “are seeking blades, armsmen.”
“For the strange men,” I said.
“The Pani,” he said, “yes.”
“Such,” I said, “or most, seem themselves warriors.”
“Additional men, many, are sought,” he said.
“There are many in Brundisium,” I said.
“Not all will do,” he said.
I looked at the coin lying on the table. It was interesting how such small, inert objects could move men, and ships, cavalries, and armies.
“Some men have never seen such a coin,” I said.
“Laborers, common laborers, peasants, verr tenders,” he said. “And this golden friend is not without his fellows,” he said.
“What must I do?” I asked.
“Ships move north,” he said.