by John Norman
"Do you speak English?" asked Ginger in English.
"Yes, yes!" said the girl, startled.
"What of the others who were with you?" asked Ginger. "Can they speak English?"
"Most," said the girl, "as a second, if not a first language."
Ginger then turned to the fellow in the broad-brimmed hat. "I can communicate with most of them, I think," she said, in Gorean. "If there is a particular girl you are interested in I can interrogate her specifically."
The man pointed to the naked red-haired girl, her hands bound behind her, on the central platform.
"Do you speak English?" asked Ginger.
"Yes," said the girl, pulling at her bonds, "yes!"
"Yes," said Ginger to the man in the broad-brimmed hat, in Gorean.
He nodded. I could see that he was pleased by this. That seemed to be the woman he was interested in having understand him, and clearly. I did not think he was particularly concerned, truly, about communicating with the others. The uses to which he intended to put them, I gathered, did not require subtleties of communication. His desires with respect to their performances, I gathered, could be adequately conveyed by such means as the boot and whip.
"What is the language in which you have been speaking to these women?" he asked of Ginger.
"English, Master," she said.
He indicated Evelyn. "Does this slave, too, know this English?" he asked.
"Yes, Master," said Ginger.
Evelyn nodded. "Yes, Master," she said.
I smiled. Two girls, doubtless, could train the red-haired barbarian more quickly than one. For example, they could work her in shifts.
"You speak English," cried the girl on the side block, the collar and chain on her throat, "what is this place and how did I come here!"
"This is the world called Gor," said Ginger, "and you were brought here by spacecraft."
"What manner of place is this," begged the girl, lifting the chain on her collar, "and is this how they treat all women?"
"I shall not expatiate on what manner of place this is," said Ginger, "for you, yourself, shall soon learn, and well. And this is not how they treat all women. Women on this world, most of them, enjoy a status and freedom of which you, from Earth, cannot even conceive. Their raiment is splendid, their station is lofty, their mien is noble, their prestige is boundless. Dread them, and fear them—"
The girl looked at her, frightened.
"For you are not such a woman," said Ginger.
The girl clutched the chain, kneeling on the block.
"No," said Ginger, "you are not such a woman. You are less than the dust beneath their feet."
"I—I do not understand," said the girl, stammering.
"You are the sort of woman who will wear rags," said Ginger, "who will rejoice if a crust of bread is thrust in your mouth."
"I—I do not understand," said the girl.
"You will learn the weight of bonds, the lash of the whip," said Ginger. "You will learn to crawl, and bend, and obey."
The girl looked at her with horror.
"You will learn that you are an animal," said Ginger.
"An animal?" said the girl, frightened.
"Yes," said Ginger, "and worth less than most animals."
"What sort of woman am I, then?" asked the girl.
"Can you not guess?" asked Ginger.
The girl looked at her, terrified.
"A female slave," said Ginger.
"Let us now have a bid on the two tavern girls," called the auctioneer. "We must have at least a tarsk apiece for them!"
The girl shook her head numbly, disbelievingly. "No," she whispered. "No."
Ginger regarded her.
"It cannot be," said the girl.
"It is," said Ginger.
"Not a female slave," said the girl. She lifted the chain, disbelievingly, on her neck.
"Yes," said Ginger.
"No!" said the girl. "No!" She clutched the chain on her neck in terror.
"Yes," said Ginger.
The girl leaped suddenly to her feet and, crouching over, with the fullness of her small strength, began to tear wildly at the chain. "No," she cried, "not a female slave! No!"
The men watched, with interest.
Then the girl, sobbing, her small hands raw, and cut, ceased her struggles.
"I am chained," she said, numbly, to Ginger.
"Yes, you are," said Ginger, adding, "—Slave."
There was the sudden lash of the five-stranded Gorean slave whip and the girl cried out and sank down on the block, kneeling, with her head down, making herself as small as possible. Five times did the attendant lash her beauty. Then she lay on her stomach on the block, sobbing, the collar and chain on her neck, her fingernails tight in the wood. "I will be good, Masters," she wept. "I will be good."
The attendant, of course, did not understand English, but it was not difficult for him to detect in her demeanor a plea for mercy and a fervent asseveration of unquestioning acquiescence. All she wanted to know now was what was wanted of her. Clearly she was minded to be pleasing. The whip had taught her that she was not dominant, and that she was a female on a world in which women such as she would find their place in the order of nature. It would be theirs to be obey men, and with abject perfection. That is how these strange and untamed men, so different from those of her own gray, polluted world, would have it.
I regarded her, bemused.
She sobbed, and whimpered, on her belly, chained, on the block. There is no mistaking the sounds of a chastened, penitent slave.
Here, she had learned, men had not been tricked out of their natural sovereignty. Here men were the masters, at least of women such as she, women in their proper place, women in the order of nature.
"Do I hear a bid on the tavern girls?" asked the auctioneer.
"Five copper tarsks apiece!" laughed a man.
Ginger bit her lip, in anger. There was laughter.
"Stand straighter, Slave," said a man.
Ginger straightened her body, and lifted her head.
"Miss, oh, please, Miss!" called the red-haired girl, plaintively, on her knees, stripped, her hands tied behind her with the cord, from the central block.
Ginger was startled. The red-haired slave had spoken without permission. She turned to face her.
"Am I, too, a slave?" called the red-haired girl.
Ginger looked about, and sensed that she might respond, without being beaten. The experienced slave girl is very sensitive to such things.
We saw the auctioneer remove the kaiila quirt from his belt.
"Yes," said Ginger, "you are all slaves!"
"And you?" inquired the red-haired girl.
"We, too, are slaves," said Ginger, indicating herself and Evelyn. "Do you think free women would be so rudely stripped and brazenly displayed? We, and these others, are on sale! Do you doubt that we are slaves? See our brands!" She turned her left thigh to the central platform. Evelyn, too, turned so that the red-haired girl might, as she could, observe her brand.
"You are branded!" said the red-haired girl. "You are only branded slaves!"
"Consider the mark burned into your own lovely hide," said Ginger.
The girl regarded her own thigh, fearfully.
"It is no different from that which we wear," said Ginger.
The girl regarded her with horror.
"It marks you well, does it not?" asked Ginger.
"Yes," said the girl, in misery.
"As ours do us," said Ginger.
"Then I, too, am nothing but a branded slave?" said the red-haired girl.
"Precisely," said Ginger.
"Then I, too, at least in theory, could be put up for sale," she said, aghast.
"Bids have already been taken on you," said Ginger. "You are up for sale."
"No!" cried the girl. "I am Millicent Aubrey-Welles, of Pennsylvania. I cannot be for sale!"
"You are a nameless slave animal, being vended for the pleasure of Mas
ters," said Ginger.
"I am not for sale!" cried the girl.
"You are," said Ginger. "And I, for one, would not pay much for you."
Wildly the red-haired girl tried to attain her feet but the auctioneer, his hand in her hair, twisted her and threw her on her belly before him. Twice he lashed her with the quirt. "Oh!" she cried. "Oh!" He then stepped away from her. He laughed. She had squirmed well. Her body was obviously highly sensitive. This portended well for her quality as a slave. She lifted her head, wildly, to Ginger. "I am truly to be sold?" she begged.
"Yes," said Ginger.
"Oh!" cried the girl, in pain, again quirted by the auctioneer. "Oh! Oh!" She had again spoken without permission. Then she lay quietly, scarcely moving, beaten, frightened, on the block. She did not care to feel the quirt again. I think, lying there, she now began, more fully and explicitly than she had dared before, to comprehend the actuality of her condition, that she might be, in fact, what she seemed to be, a lashed, soon-to-be vended slave.
"What were these women inquiring of you?" inquired a man, of Ginger.
"They desired a clarification of their condition, Master," responded Ginger.
"Are they dimwitted?" asked the fellow.
"I do not think so, Master," said Ginger. "It is only that they come from a world which has not prepared them to easily grasp the nature of certain realities, let alone that they might find themselves implicated in them."
"I see," said the man.
"But do not fear, Master," said Ginger, "we learn swiftly."
"That is known to me," he grinned.
Ginger looked down, swallowing hard. It was true. On Gor, girls learned swiftly.
I saw the fellow in the broad-brimmed hat, behind Ginger and Evelyn, make a sign to the auctioneer.
"If there is no one here now who wishes further to examine the tavern girls, prior to their sale, I will have them removed to a holding area," said the auctioneer.
Ginger and Evelyn, startled, exchanged glances. As no one spoke, the auctioneer nodded to two of the attendants. In a moment the girls, the upper left arm of each in the grasp of an attendant, were conducted, bewildered, through a side door from the hall.
The fellow in the broad-brimmed hat, I gathered, had influence in Kailiauk. He was, obviously, at any rate, taken seriously in the house of Ram Seibar.
When the heavy door had closed behind the tavern girls, he said to the auctioneer, "One five apiece."
"Are there any other bids?" inquired the auctioneer.
There was silence in the room. It interested me that there were no other bids.
"One five," agreed the auctioneer. "One five, for each."
The fellow in the broad-brimmed hat then pointed to the girl on the central block. This did not surprise me. I had gathered that he might be interested in her. The purchase of the two tavern girls, further, I had surmised, was intimately connected with this interest. He wanted them, doubtless, to be used in her training, in particular, I supposed, with her training in Gorean. Other aspects of her training he might see fit to attend to himself. Needless to say, it is pleasant to train a beautiful woman uncompromisingly to one's most intimate pleasures. Further, there was no doubt that the girl on the block was a beauty. Yet, in some way, I still found his interest in her somewhat puzzling. She was, obviously, in complexion, coloration, refinement, figure and beauty, quite different from the other girls he had purchased. Perhaps he was a fellow with wide divergence in his tastes.
"We have a bid on the slave of six nine," said the auctioneer. With his foot he moved her bound hands a bit upward on her back. He then stood with his right boot on the small of her back. "Six nine," he said, looking at the fellow in the broad-brimmed hat.
"Seven five," said the fellow.
The auctioneer then removed his boot from the prone body of the slave and, by the hair, pulled her up to her knees.
"Seven five," said the fellow.
The auctioneer then, by the hair, pulled the girl to her feet. He then, with his quirt, indicated that the girl should suck in her gut and lift her head. She did so.
"Very well," said the fellow in the broad-brimmed hat. "Seven eight."
The auctioneer seemed hesitant.
"Seven nine, then," said the fellow.
This, I took it, was the bid the auctioneer had been waiting for. It was an even silver tarsk, or an even hundred copper tarsks, of the sort common in Kailiauk, figured in multiples of ten, over the earlier standing bid of six nine.
"Are there any other bids?" called the auctioneer. I sensed there would not be any. Too, I did not think the auctioneer expected any. To be sure, it was doubtless his business to inquire explicitly into the matter.
The girl trembled, her chin obediently high.
No more bids were forthcoming. No one, it seemed, cared to bid against the fellow in the broad-brimmed hat. I found this of interest. I had not found this sort of thing before in a Gorean market.
"Deliver her to the holding area," said the auctioneer, addressing himself to an attendant near the foot of the block. The fellow, then, climbed to the height of the block. "She is yours," said the auctioneer to the man in the broad-brimmed hat. The attendant seized the girl by the arms. It was only then, I think, that the former Millicent Aubrey-Welles, from Pennsylvania, realized that she had been sold. She was conducted from the surface of the block.
"That," said the auctioneer, "concludes the final auction of the evening. Permit me to remind you all that the market is not yet closed. It remains open for another Ahn. Peruse now, if you would, in the time remaining before we close, the lovely morsels, dainties for your delectation, fastened on the slave plates to the sides. In a lesser house any one of them would doubtless be worthy the central block. Yet, here, in the house of Ram Seibar, in this house of prizes and bargains, no one of them is likely to cost you more than a silver tarsk!"
I glanced about, at the girls on the side blocks. A few pretended to brazen indifference. Most, however, only too obviously, were terrified. I think there was not one among them who did not, now, understand that she was a slave. I think there was not one among them who did not now realize that she might soon, and totally, belong to a man.
"To the side blocks, please, Noble Sirs," invited the auctioneer, with an expansive gesture of his open hand, "to the side blocks!"
The men began to drift to the side blocks. Several went toward the block of the girl with whom Ginger had spoken. She had looked well under the attendant's whip. Several of the girls whimpered. A woman's first sale, I suspected, is often the hardest.
"Come with me," said the fellow in the broad-brimmed hat. He then turned about, and went through a side door.
Puzzled, I followed him.
On the other side of the door we found ourselves in a holding area, a long, shedlike structure ancillary to the main hall. It was wooden-floored and the narrow floor boards were laid lengthwise. About every five feet a linear set of these boards was painted yellow, thus, in effect, making long, yellow lines, parallel to the sides of the structure, on the floor. At the head and foot of these lines, also in yellow, were painted numbers.
On one of these lines, number six, there knelt, one behind the other, in tandem fashion, seven girls. They were barbarians, but they had been knelt in the position of pleasure slaves, back on their heels, knees wide, hands on their thighs, backs straight, heads up.
"You handled yourself well in the hall," said the fellow to me. "It is my suspicion that you are no stranger to war."
"I have fought," I admitted.
"Are you a mercenary?" he asked.
"Of sorts," I said.
"Why are you in Kailiauk?" he asked.
"I am here on business," I said, warily.
"Are your pursuers numerous?" he asked.
"Pursuers?" I asked.
"You are doubtless in flight," he said. "Would you give me a hand with these chains?" He then bent down and, from some things, his, I gathered, near one wall, he had picked up s
everal loops of light chain, with spaced, attached collars. He slung these loops over his left shoulder and joined me, near the last girl kneeling on the line.
He handed me a collar, at the chain's termination. I clasped it about the neck of the last girl on the line. It closed, locking, with a heavy metallic click.
"I am not in flight," I said.
The girl whimpered, collared and on the chain.
"I see," grinned the fellow.
"Why should you think I am in flight?" I asked.
"Skills such as yours," he said, "do not bring their highest prices in the vicinity of the perimeter." He handed me another length of chain, with its collar.
"Oh," I said. I added the next girl to the chain. The collars had front and back rings, were hinged on the right and locked on the left. This is a familiar form of coffle collar. The lengths of chain between the collars were about three to four feet long. Some were attached to the collar rings by the links themselves, opened and then reclosed about the rings, and some of them were fastened to the collar rings by snap rings. Another common form of coffle collar has its hinge in the front and closes behind the back of the neck, like the common slave collar. It has a single collar ring, usually on the left, through which, usually, a single chain is strung. Girls are spaced on such a chain, usually, by snap rings. An advantage of the first sort of coffle arrangement is that the chain may, as girls are added or subtracted, be shortened or lengthened. A chain which has been borne by fifty girls would, of course, be impracticably heavy for five or six. An advantage of the second arrangement is that girls can be easily spaced on the chain, more or less closely together. Which chaining arrangement is best for a given set of girls depends, of course, on the particular intentions and purposes of their master. The fellow in the broad-brimmed hat had opted, of course, for the first arrangement. This suggested to me that he expected girls, for one reason or another, to be subtracted from the chain.
These are, of course, only two coffle arrangements. Needless to say, there are several such arrangements. For example, ankle coffles may be used for short distances, and wrist coffles for longer distances. Waist coffles, too, are not unknown, which are effective with women, given the excitements of their figures. In some primitive areas forked branches are lashed together and closed about throats by another branch tied across the fork. Two women, hands tied behind their backs, may thus be confined in a single pair of branches. One adds additional women, hands tied behind them, to this arrangement by taking another pair of forked branches and fastening the rear fork about the throat of one of the women. She, then, will be fastened in two of the triangles, the one attaching her to the woman in front of her, and the other to the woman behind her, one cross stick tied before her throat and another behind her neck. Sometimes, however, the pairs are simply linked by a length of rope or vine. And, obviously, if one is dealing with women, a simple rope, or cord, may be used. Preferably, of course, it is cored with wire. The most common form of coffle for long treks between particular markets is a throat coffle utilizing simple chain and collar iron. Each girl, in turn, places her head on the anvil and has the collar hammered shut about her neck. It is removed from her, similarly, when the destination is reached. It is not easy to steal a girl from such a coffle. Some of these coffles are very large, containing hundreds of girls, sometimes as many as a thousand or more, and the march may be as much as a thousand pasangs, and take several days in transit. The girls are normally marched nude. This is appropriate, as they are animals. One would not clothe tharlarion or kaiila, for example. Too, it saves on tunics or such, which, in the wind and rain, and heat and dust, might be ruined or soiled in the march. Throat coffles are usually preferred by masters, as it is believed they provide the greatest security. Such devices, like the slave collar, cannot be slipped. The fellow in the broad-brimmed hat, for example, was typical, in opting for this arrangement.