by John Norman
"Four!" called out another man.
"Five!" cried out another.
"But, Gentlemen," called the auctioneer, turning the girl on the rope, turning her left thigh to the crowd, "restrain your bids! Can you not see that she has not yet even been branded?"
"Mark her! Mark her!" called more than one man.
Three men were now climbing carefully to the height of the central block. The first two men, between them, carried a branding rack, which they placed near the steps on the right, as I faced the block, and then slid to the center of the block, rather forward on the block. The third man, its handles wrapped in heavy cloth, carried a cylindrical, glowing brazier, from which protruded the handles of two irons. He placed this near the branding rack. At the same time the auctioneer was freeing the ankles of the girl from the ropes. He then freed the end of her wrist rope from its ring and the rope, sliding through the overhead ring, loosened. As it did so the attendant to whom the auctioneer had earlier addressed himself, now returned, supported the girl. I did not think she could stand. When the rope permitted it he lifted her in his arms. Her weight was nothing for him. The auctioneer then jerked the remainder of the rope through the overhead ring. The attendant then carried the girl, the rope trailing beside him, to the height of the central block. There, with the help of another fellow, he lowered her into the heavy rack, and spun shut the sturdy vises on her left and right thighs. She had been carried to the rack naked, her wrists bound before her. She winced, unable to move her thighs, dismayed doubtless at the perfect tightness with which they were held. Her wrists were then freed of the rope and taken behind her where they were fastened to a sturdy metal pole, a portion of the rack, by dangling slave bracelets.
The fellow who had brought the brazier to the height of the block now drew forth from it, holding it with two gloves, an iron. It was white hot.
The girl regarded it, wild-eyed.
"No!" she cried. "Are you beasts and barbarians! What do you think I am? Do you think I am an animal! Do you think I am a slave!"
The iron was leveled. It approached the circular aperture in the vise, through which, deeply into her fair thigh, it would be thrust, and held, burning and hissing, until its work was done, until the girl was marked, and well, as slave meat.
"You are bluffing!" she cried. "You cannot be serious!"
She then learned that the intention of the iron with respect to her body was quite real.
The vises were spun loose. Her hands were freed of the restraining slave bracelets, only then to be tied with a cord behind her. Dismayed and sobbing she was freed of the rack and put on her knees, head down, at the auctioneer's feet. The rack and the brazier, the iron returned to it, were removed from the central block. The girl then, naked and kneeling, her hands bound behind her, at the auctioneer's feet, lifted her head and looked wildly out at the crowd. She had been branded.
"She does not know what has happened to her," said Ginger.
"She knows," said Evelyn.
"But she does not yet fully understand it," said Ginger.
"No," said Evelyn.
"But she will soon understand it, and fully," said Ginger, "even so stupid a slave."
"Yes," said Evelyn.
The auctioneer then removed the long, supple kaiila quirt from his belt. Twice he struck the girl across the back. She cried out in pain. Her education had now commenced. No time, now, would be lost in teaching her her condition. He dragged her to her feet by the hair and bent her backwards, displaying the bow of her beauty to the crowd.
"I have a bid of five tarsks on this slut," he called. "Do I hear more? Do I hear more?"
"Is she trained?" called a man.
"Train her yourself," called the auctioneer, "to your own pleasures." It was understood, of course, that these barbarians were not trained. They had not yet been taught, as far as I could tell, even the proper modes of kneeling before a master.
"Five five!" called a man.
"Good! Good!" called the auctioneer, displaying the slave. "Do I hear more?"
"Can she speak Gorean?" called a man. I smiled. It was clearly understood that these barbarian slaves could not speak Gorean.
"Train her like a sleen or a kaiila, on her hands and knees," said the auctioneer. "She will soon learn what is required of her."
"Pose her!" called a man.
"In what way, Noble Sir?" inquired the auctioneer, obligingly. He then, following the instructions of the fellow, sat the girl down, near the front of the central block, her left leg under her, her right leg extended and flexed, her right side facing the fellow, her shoulders back, her head turned sharply to look at him. In this way the curves of her right leg, and the lines of her figure, are pleasantly displayed.
"Imagine her in your collar!" challenged the auctioneer.
"Kneel her!" called a man.
The auctioneer then knelt the girl near the front of the central block. He knelt her back on her heels. He kicked apart her knees, widely. He put her hands down on her thighs. By the hair he pulled her up so that her back was straight, and her head high.
I smiled.
She was not being knelt as a tower slave.
It was clear the disposition these men had in mind for the beauty.
How horrified, I supposed, would the gentle, refined creature be, if she understood that she was being knelt in a common position for a Gorean pleasure slave.
Yet no woman could be so stupid as not to understand, on some level or another, at least, given that she was kneeling, and given the spreading of her knees, indicative of openness and vulnerability, and the placement of her hands down and to the sides, indicative of defenselessness, and the lifting of her body and head, well revealing her figure and face, that she had been positioned for the interest and pleasure of men.
"Five seven!" called a man.
"Five seven!" repeated the auctioneer.
"Get her on her feet, so we can see her legs!" called a man.
"Belly her!" called another.
"Make her walk!" called a man.
"Kneel her, with her head to the ground!" called another.
"Put her through slave paces!" called another.
I looked to the side. One of the fellows there was the short, muscular fellow who wore the low, broad-brimmed hat. I recalled he had purchased at least four or five of the girls from the side blocks. They had been excellent females, in my opinion, but they had not seemed to be, at least on the whole, the choicest merchandise available to him, and for similar costs. It was almost as though he were purchasing them for some purpose other than that for which slave girls are commonly purchased. I did not, now, understand his apparent interest in the red-haired slave now being vended. She, surely, was the sort of woman that would be purchased, at least usually, to fulfill one of the more common purposes of slave girls.
"Men are beasts," said Ginger.
"Yes," said Evelyn.
There was the sound of a quirt lashing flesh. The red-haired girl cried out in pain.
"She does not even know what they want her to do," said Ginger.
"She is a stupid slave," said Evelyn.
"She will learn," said Ginger.
"We all learn," said Evelyn.
I had noted, during the course of the evening, that more than one of the attendants about, and the auctioneer, too, had noted the presence of the two tavern girls in the crowd. They had not taken any action, however, to eject them. I found this of interest. Perhaps they thought them to be with me and that I, so to speak, was answerable for them. Again I was puzzled as to why they would be clinging about me. As I had not volunteered to accompany one or the other of them back to her master's tavern they should have attempted, after a bit, to apply their beauty and enslaved wiles to the enticement of a more likely prospect. It was surely not their business to be standing about observing slave sales. Even now, perhaps, their masters had taken slave whips down from the walls, curious as to their absence.
I gave my attention again to the ce
ntral block. By now the red-haired beauty had been put through several slave paces, such as were feasible for her, her hands bound with the cord behind her back. She now, trembling, lay on her belly, licking and kissing at the auctioneer's kaiila boots.
"Is she vital?" called a man.
The auctioneer pulled her to her feet by the hair and turned her about, facing the crowd.
I heard some men shouting outside in the street. The two girls inched more closely to me.
The auctioneer, his quirt now hooked on his belt, stood behind the red-haired girl. He put his left hand in her hair, and pulled her head back, and placed his right hand on her right hip. She suddenly screamed and writhed, squirming. But she could not free herself from his grip. "No, please!" she screamed. "No!" she sobbed. Then she cried out, "No! Oh, no!" Then she sobbed, "No! No! No! Yes! Yes! No. No. No!" Then he released her, and she fell to her knees on the block, sobbing, crimson with shame.
"Good," said the fellow near me, he in the broad-brimmed hat.
I smiled. The lovely new slave, even freshly branded, had, in the hands of the auctioneer, betrayed herself.
"She will make a hot slut," said Ginger.
"She will not be able to help herself, no more than we," said Evelyn.
I was inclined to agree with the tavern girls. Clearly the red-haired girl had strong slave latencies.
"Six!" called a man.
"Six five!" called another.
"Six seven!" called another.
"Six eight!" called another.
"Six nine!" called another.
There was now a commotion at the door. We heard shouting behind us. The auctioneer looked to the back of the room, angrily. Seven or eight men, in the boots and garb of drovers, thrust in the door. Two or three of them carried half-emptied bottles of paga. Two of them had drawn swords in their hands. The tavern girls seized my arms, trying to make themselves small, behind me. The men, I gathered, were drovers, members probably of the same crew that I had seen arrive earlier, those who had driven their kaiila, crying out and shouting, through the streets.
"Gentlemen!" cried the auctioneer. "Do not break the peace! Sheathe your steel! There is a sale in progress."
"There they are!" cried a fellow, one of the drovers, pointing towards us. He was a young, dark-haired, rough-looking fellow. The tavern girls cried out with misery. I shook them loose from my arms. The fellow slammed his steel into his sheath and strode towards us. Another fellow, one who looked much like him, was but a foot behind him. They were, I assumed, brothers.
"The Hobarts," said a man, "from the Bar Ina."
The fellow in advance seized Evelyn by the arms and shook her viciously. I was afraid he might break her little, collared neck. "I sought you at the tavern," he said to her, angrily. "You knew we would bring stock to town this night."
"And you, little slut," snarled the other, "what of you?" He seized Ginger by the hair with both hands and threw her cruelly to his feet. I was pleased to see that he knew how to handle a slave. She looked up at him, her head held up to face him, her small hands futilely on his wrists, tears in her eyes. "Why were you not in the tavern of Randolph, awaiting me?" he demanded.
I deemed now that I better understood why the two girls had not been at their respective taverns, why they, it seemed, in effect, under the pretense of soliciting business for the establishments of their masters, had been hiding in the sales barn of Ram Seibar. What I did not understand was why the personnel of the sales barn had not driven them away. The presence of two such luscious tavern girls at the sale might surely distract the attention of at least some of the buyers. This was the more puzzling as, in the past, I had gathered, they had been, in similar situations, driven from the premises, being lashed across the calves. This, then, was apparently not their first offense in such matters.
The first young fellow then spun Evelyn about and hurled her a few feet from him, toward the door. "Precede me to the tavern, Slave," he said.
"Yes, Master," she wept.
"And you," said the other, throwing Ginger to her belly, toward the door, "get your ass to the tavern of Randolph."
"Yes, Master," she said.
I saw two attendants, at the door, look at one another, tensely, uneasily. I did not understand this reaction. What was it to them if these two women were to be conducted back to their respective taverns, there to be returned to their intimate labors?
The first of the young fellows turned about, and glared at me. I observed the sheath. It was at his left hip. He was apparently right-handed. I observed the right hand. It did not tense to move toward the blade's hilt.
He was obviously angry. I met his gaze, dispassionately.
The girls had now sought me out, I realized, hoping that I might provide them with some sort of shelter, or protection. I presumably seemed large, and strong. I carried a blade. Too, I was a stranger in town and would know nothing of the Hobarts, or the crew of the Bar Ina, or whoever it might be, that might be interested in them. In their way, given my lack of knowledge in these matters, they had been trying to take advantage of me. I found this irritating. They had, of course, seriously miscalculated in this matter. As I was not intending to take them to an alcove myself I would not have afforded them, no more than any other Gorean male, the least protection. They belonged totally to their masters and, more generally, to men. They were slave girls. Still, it would not have pleased me if this fellow, or fellows, these drovers, thought they were taking them away from me.
The fellow lashed out. What occurred then was done rapidly. I am not certain that all present clearly understood what was done. I caught his wrist and, twisting it, jerked him forward and off balance, at the same time kicking forcibly upwards. I then, bending his wrist back, thrust him to the side. The other fellow was caught with a backwards kick, his steel no more than halfway from its sheath. As I had not been facing him he had apparently been taken by surprise by this blow, by its direction, its nature and force. Untrained men often expect assaults to occur frontally. Various options in the martial arts, of course, are available to the practiced combatant. My blade was free from my sheath before his knees began to sag. I faced the drovers then, my blade drawn. He crumpled to the floor. Men quickly cleared space about us.
"Well done!" said the fellow in the broad-brimmed hat.
I faced five drovers, their steel drawn. Bottles were cast aside.
"The first man who attacks," said the auctioneer, from the height of the central platform, "is a dead man."
The drovers looked about. Attendants in the sales barn held leveled crossbows trained on them. The short, heavy quarrels lay in their guides. The cables were taut. Fingers rested on the triggers.
Angrily the drovers sheathed their steel. They gathered up their two fallen comrades and, supporting them, with dark looks, withdrew from the sales barn.
"The two leading fellows there," said the man with the broad-brimmed hat, "were Max and Kyle Hobart, from the Bar Ina. They will not make pleasant enemies."
I shrugged. I resheathed my steel.
The two tavern girls, auburn-haired Ginger and dark-haired Evelyn, frightened, began to move unobtrusively toward the door.
"One moment, young ladies," called the auctioneer, pleasantly.
"We are going, Masters," said Ginger, plaintively.
"Perhaps not," said the auctioneer.
"Masters?" asked Ginger, frightened. Behind her there was the heavy ropish sound of heavy cordage being dropped. She spun about. The exit was blocked by the reticulated structure of a stout, hempen slave net. She caught with her fingers at the net, and then, frightened, looked back over her shoulder. "Masters?" she asked.
Evelyn immediately knelt. "Please forgive us, Masters," she said. "Please do not whip us!"
Ginger then knelt, and swiftly, beside Evelyn. "No, Masters," she said. "Please do not whip us."
"Who is your master?" asked the auctioneer.
"Randolph, of Kailiauk," said Ginger.
"Russell, of K
ailiauk," said Evelyn.
"No, pretty little slaves," said the auctioneer. "Your master is the house of Ram Seibar."
"Master?" asked Ginger.
"You have been nuisances long enough," said the auctioneer.
"Master?" asked Ginger, frightened.
"Two days ago you were purchased from your respective masters," said the auctioneer. "You have now, as we anticipated, effected your self-delivery."
The girls looked at one another in terror.
"Your time of being bothers to the house of Ram Seibar is now at an end," said the auctioneer.
There was much laughter among the men at the rich joke played on the two slaves.
"Remove their collars," said the auctioneer to an attendant. He removed the collars. The keys were correct. Doubtless they had been supplied by their former masters, probably at the time of the transactions effecting their purchase.
"Get your clothes off," said the auctioneer.
Swiftly the girls complied. Ginger removed even the beaded cuff on her left ankle. Evelyn removed even the black-ribbon choker on her throat. They were then stark naked. Both, I saw, had been well branded.
They looked about themselves, frightened.
Their clothing, with the collars, was collected by an attendant. Such articles, doubtless, would be returned to their former masters.
"We have here, for sale," laughed the auctioneer, "two of the prettiest tavern girls in Kailiauk. Should you doubt this, scrutinize them closely."
The girls shrank back. Men laughed.
"We are willing to consider any bid over a silver tarsk for them," said the auctioneer. "However, we encourage their buyers to see that their pretty, curved asses are removed from Kailiauk."
There was more laughter.
"Can you communicate with these other slaves?" asked the fellow in the broad-brimmed hat of the two stripped tavern girls. He indicated some of the girls on the side blocks.
Ginger approached one of the girls. Evelyn, too, approached her.