Assassin of Gor

by Norman, John;

  “These are three barbarians, two White Silk, one Red Silk,” called the auctioneer, “all from the House of Cernus, whom it is our hope you will find pleasing.”

  “Are they trained?” called a voice.

  “They are so certified,” responded the auctioneer. He then summoned three whip slaves to the block, and each held the chain of one of the girls.

  At the auctioneer’s command the slaves led the girls about the block, and then brought them again to its shining, shallowly concave center.

  “What am I offered?” called the auctioneer.

  There was silence.

  “Come now, brothers and sisters of Glorious Ar, citizens and gentle buyers of Glorious Ar, and friends of Ar and hers, what am I offered for these three barbarians?”

  There was a bid of three gold pieces from the auditorium, probably intended to do little more than initiate the bidding.

  “I hear three,” called the auctioneer, “do I hear four?” As he said this, he moved to one of the girls and threw back her hood. It was Virginia. Her head was back, and she looked disdainful. She wore the cosmetics of a Pleasure Slave, applied exquisitely. Her hair, glistening, fell to her shoulders. Her lips were red with slave rouge.

  “Eight gold pieces!” I heard cry from the crowd.

  “What of ten?” asked the auctioneer.

  “Ten!” I heard cry.

  The auctioneer then threw back the hood of the second girl, Phyllis.

  She seemed coldly furious. The crowd gasped. The cosmetics enhanced and heightened the drama of her great natural beauty, but with an insolent and deliberate coarseness that was a gauntlet thrown before the blood of men.

  “Twenty gold pieces!” I heard cry. “Twenty-five!” I heard from another area.

  Phyllis tossed her head and looked away, over the heads of the crowd, nothing but contempt on her face.

  “What of thirty?” called the auctioneer.

  “Forty!” I heard cry.

  The auctioneer laughed and approached the third girl.

  Cernus leaned over the arm of his chair, toward me. “I wonder,” he said, “how she will feel when she learns she has been truly sold?”

  “Put a sword in my hand,” said I, “and face me!”

  Cernus laughed and turned his attention again to the block.

  As the auctioneer reached for the hood of the third girl, she turned away and suddenly, though chained by the wrists, darted toward the stairs; the slack in the chain was taken up in her flight and, on the second or third stair down, she was spun about and thrown to the steps, half on them, half on the block. The whip slave who held her chain then hauled her cruelly, on her stomach, and then on her back, to the center of the block. There the whip slave stepped on the chain fastened to her slave bracelets about six inches from the bracelets, pinning her wrists to the block. The auctioneer, with his foot on her belly, held her in place.

  “Shall we have a look at this one?” the auctioneer inquired of the crowd.

  There were eager shouts.

  I was angry. I knew that, in effect, this was a performance, each detail planned expertly, choreographed and rehearsed in the House of Cernus.

  Cernus chuckled.

  The crowd shouted eagerly to see the rebellious girl.

  The auctioneer thrust his hand beneath the hood and, with his fist in her hair, drew her to her knees before the buyers. Then he brushed back her hood.

  The light over the block took the glint of the tiny, fine nose ring in the nose of Elizabeth Cardwell.

  The crowd gasped.

  How startling, and incredibly beautiful she was!

  She seemed fine and savage, as vital and dangerous and beautiful as the she-larl. She was a woman who could well have stood among the most marvelous of Gor.

  She wore the cosmetics of the slave girl.

  There was silence.

  It was a tribute in its way, the honoring by way of awe this magnificent captive female, to be sold.

  The silence was broken by a bid. “One hundred gold pieces,” spoken by a Slaver who wore the insignia of Tor, some feet from the box of Cernus.

  “A hundred and twenty,” said another, soberly, matter-of-factly, this man, too, a professional Slaver, he wearing on his left shoulder the sign of Tyros.

  The three girls then stood rather together, Elizabeth somewhat forward, the other two a bit behind and flanking her; then they were led on their chains again about the block.

  The bids increased to a hundred and forty gold pieces. Then the girls were spaced on the block, Elizabeth toward the front and middle, and Virginia and Phyllis on alternate sides. The chains were then removed from their slave bracelets and the three whip slaves retired. The auctioneer then, with his key, removed the left slave bracelet from the wrist of each, permitting it to dangle from the right wrist.

  He then removed the black cloak from Virginia, who stood before us in the brief, sleeveless yellow livery, slashed to the belt, of a slave girl.

  There were cries of approval.

  He then drew the cloak from Phyllis, who was attired as was Virginia.

  The crowd cried out with enthusiasm.

  He then went to Elizabeth and removed her cloak also.

  The crowd roared with pleasure.

  Elizabeth had been clad in the brief leather of a Tuchuk wagon girl, simple, rough, sleeveless, the short skirt on the left side slit to the belt, so that the saddle of the kaiila, mount of the Wagon Peoples, would be permitted her.

  “Two hundred gold pieces,” said a merchant from Cos.

  “Two hundred and fifteen,” called out a high officer in the cavalry of Ar.

  Again the girls were commanded to walk about the block, and they did so, proudly, irritably, as though wishing to express only contempt for what they seemed to regard as the rabble about them. When they had finished, Virginia now stood toward the center, with Phyllis behind her and to her left, and Elizabeth behind her and to her right. The three whip slaves then again climbed to the block. By this time the bids had increased to two hundred and forty. There were some cries of protest, perhaps from less-affluent bidders, that the girls were not of High Caste.

  The auctioneer then motioned to the whip slave who stood behind Virginia. He drew her left wrist behind her back and snapped it into the open slave bracelet, thus confining both wrists behind her. Then he, pulling at the shoulders of her livery, jerked it down to her waist. This pleased the crowd. There was a bid of two hundred and fifty then for the lot. The auctioneer then signaled the whip slaves and the girls rotated their position, bringing Phyllis to the front of the block. There, she, like Virginia, was similarly secured and revealed. The bids then increased to two hundred and seventy-five gold pieces. Then the girls rotated again and this time Elizabeth stood at the center of the block.

  “It appears,” said the auctioneer, “that this was once a wench of Tuchuks.”

  The crowd grunted its approval. The Tuchuks, one of the distant Wagon Peoples, tend to be, to those of northern Gor, a people of mystery and intrigue; to those of the southern plains, of course, they tend to be little more than efficient, fierce and dreaded foes.

  “Can you guess,” asked the auctioneer, “which of the three slaves is Red Silk?”

  The crowd roared with amusement.

  “Doubtless,” called the auctioneer, “her Tuchuk master used her well.”

  The crowd laughed.

  At this point, savagely, Elizabeth spat into the face of the auctioneer.

  The crowd screamed with amusement, but the auctioneer did not seem much pleased. Angrily he motioned back the whip slave, who stood behind the girl, and then he himself threw her hands cruelly behind her back and snapped shut the slave bracelets, thus himself confining her.

  “You have pleased ignorant herders,” he said. “Now we shall see if you can please the men of Ar.”

  So saying, he himself stripped her to the waist before the crowd.

  Elizabeth was beautiful. The placement of her wrists, of
course, like that of the other girls was no accident. It is done so that there be no impediment to the vision of the buyers.

  I found I wanted to take her in my arms and kiss the slave rouge from her mouth. I suppose my responses were not much different from those of other men in the crowd.

  “Three hundred gold pieces!” called a rich man of Ar.

  The crowd shouted its approval of the bid.

  “Three hundred and five,” said the professional Slaver from Tor.

  “Three hundred and ten!” announced the Slaver who wore upon his shoulder the sign of Tyros.

  The auctioneer looked into the crowd. “Is not Samos,” he asked, “First Slaver of Port Kar with us this evening?”

  All eyes turned to one of the boxes near the front of the block.

  There, slumped in a marble chair, was an indolent figure, yet indolent as is the satisfied beast of prey. About his left shoulder he wore the knotted ropes of Port Kar; his garment was simple, dark, closely woven; the hood was thrown back revealing a broad, wide head, close-cropped white hair; the face was red from windburn and salt; it was wrinkled and lined, cracked like leather; in his ears there were two small golden rings; in him I sensed power, experience, intelligence, cruelty; I felt in him the presence of the carnivore, at the moment not inclined to hunt, or kill.

  “He is,” said the man.

  This Slaver had not yet made a bid.

  “Surely Samos of Port Kar, First Slaver of Gor’s Tatrix of the Sea, noble Port Kar, cares to express interest in these unworthy wenches?”

  There was silence.

  “Show me the women,” said Samos.

  The crowd shouted with pleasure.

  The auctioneer bowed low to Samos, First Slaver of Port Kar.

  Almost instantly, by the whip slaves, the three barbarian beauties from the House of Cernus were revealed to the buyers of Ar.

  The crowd rose to its feet shouting and stamping, drowning out what bids might have been made.

  How beautiful were the three women, the slaves.

  When the tumult subsided, the voice of Samos was heard again.

  “Remove the bracelets.”

  This was done and the three whip slaves retired, taking with them the bracelets which had confined the lovely commodities that now graced the block of Ar.

  The crowd shouted and roared, and stamped its feet.

  The girls stood in the light, lifting their heads to the crowd, nude and proud on the block, in the wild shouting and stamping and crying out, and knew themselves beautiful and prized. How marvelous and female they seemed, the three slaves, in that moment.

  There were perhaps dozens of bids that were shouted forth and lost in the acclaim of the crowd. I managed to hear one bid for four hundred pieces of gold. At last, once again the crowd subsided.

  Again the auctioneer looked to the box of Samos, First Slaver of Port Kar.

  “Does noble Samos now care to express interest?” inquired the auctioneer.

  “Let them perform,” said Samos.

  Again the auctioneer bowed to Samos. The crowd shouted with delight.

  “Shall Pleasure Silks be brought?” inquired the auctioneer.

  “No,” said Samos.

  Again the crowd roared its pleasure.

  The Musicians took up their instruments and, together, as three slaves, women who would be owned by men, the girls danced.

  In the crowd men cried out with pleasure; I heard even gasps from women, perhaps amazingly, startled that their sex was capable of such beauty; the eyes of some of the women shone with ill-concealed admiration and excitement; I could mark the quickness of their breath in their veils; the eyes of others seemed terrified, and, shrinking, they looked from the block about themselves, suddenly fearing the men with whom they shared the tiers; I heard the tearing of a veil and heard a girl scream and turned to see her lips being raped by the kiss of a Warrior, and then she was yielding to him; the crowd went wild; here and there there was the cry of a woman in the throng who was seized by those near her; one girl tried to flee and was dragged screaming by the ankle to the foot of a tier; another woman, with her own hands, tore away her veil and seized in her hands the head of a man near her, pressing her lips to his, and in a moment she lay, robes torn, in his arms, weeping, crying with pleasure.

  Four dances the girls danced while the crowd screamed and roared, and then, at an instant, their dances ended, they stood suddenly motionless, splendid, animal, magnificent, inciting.

  Then they, breathing deeply, stained with sweat, stepped back on the block, and the auctioneer stepped forward.

  He did not even call for a bid.

  “Five hundred gold pieces!” called the rich man of Ar.

  “Five hundred and twenty!” called the Slaver of Tor.

  “Five hundred and thirty!” called another man.

  “Five hundred and thirty-five!” called the Slaver from Tyros.

  The auctioneer turned then to the box of Samos, First Slaver of Port Kar.

  “Does noble Samos, First Slaver of Port Kar, jewel and mistress of the sea, not care to express interest in these unworthy wenches? Would they not cheer the heart of a seaman returned from long at sea?”

  There was laughter from the crowd.

  “Would such not be pleased to be served his paga by such as these? Would he not care to see them dance for him? Would the sight of them, eager, lips lifted, in the shadows of a tavern’s alcoves, not soothe his weary eyes aching from the sun and salt of gleaming Thassa?”

  The crowd roared with laughter. But Samos did not speak. His eyes revealed no expression.

  “Would they not be a fitting gift for the palace of the very Ubar of Port Kar, beautiful jewel and mistress of gleaming Thassa?”

  The crowd was silent.

  Inwardly I raged, but too I was overcome with horror, for I could not allow even in my imagination that the girls might be sold to one of Port Kar. Never has a slave girl escaped from canaled Port Kar, protected on one side by the interminable, rush-grown delta of the Vosk, on the other by the broad tides of the Tamber Gulf, and beyond it, the vast, blue, gleaming, perilous Thassa. It is said that the chains of a slave girl are heaviest in Port Kar. Perhaps nowhere on Gor would the slavery of a girl be so complete, so abject, as in squalid, malignant Port Kar. I would not admit to myself, even in speculation, that such a fate might befall the helpless prizes now upon the block of Ar, years of miserable, unrelieved servitude, to live at the beck and call of masters among the most cruel of Gor, existing only to give pleasure to one to whom they would be always nothing, only slave.

  “I do not choose now to bid,” said Samos, First Slaver of Port Kar.

  The auctioneer smiled and bowed low.

  “Five hundred and forty gold pieces!” cried the rich man of Ar, and the crowd cheered its approval of the bid.

  Then there was silence.

  “I am offered five hundred and forty gold pieces for these hot-blooded barbarian beauties,” called the auctioneer, “only five hundred and forty gold pieces for this exquisite set of animals, in prime condition and superbly trained to tantalize you, to torment you, to drive you wild with pleasure! Do I hear more? Come now, gentle brothers and sisters of Ar, when again will such superb creatures be yours to ensteel for only a paltry sum of golden coin!”

  There was laughter from the crowd.

  “Five hundred and forty-five,” growled the Slaver from Tyros.

  The crowd greeted the bid with pleasure, but then it seemed quiet.

  The auctioneer looked from face to face, and there were no more bids forthcoming.

  He lifted his hand, palm up, open, to the crowd. If he closed his fist it meant he had accepted the bid.

  There was silence.

  Suddenly, to my horror, Elizabeth strode forth to the front of the block.

  She stood there with her hands on her hips, her head back.

  “The men of Ar are cheap!” she announced.

  Laughter greeted her, and she, too, lau
ghed. “Yes, cheap they are!” she laughed. She turned about and went to Virginia. “Here,” said she, tauntingly, “is a slim beauty, lithe and swift, White Silk, intelligent, curious for the touch of a man, who for the right man would be the most abject and servile wench a beast could wish. Imagine her, noble men of Ar, chained to your slave ring! She alone is worth five hundred pieces of gold!”

  The crowd roared its approval and the auctioneer dropped his hand and stepped back, perhaps as surprised as any in that room.

  “And this wench!” said Elizabeth, striding to Phyllis, “What of her?”

  Phyllis looked at her, startled.

  “Place your hands behind the back of your head, Slave,” ordered Elizabeth. “Put your head back, no, farther back, farther! Are you stupid? Now turn, slowly, unworthy slave, for the noble buyers of Ar!”

  Startled, Phyllis did precisely as she was told, beautifully.

  “Oh, Masters,” taunted Elizabeth, “would you not like this one to wear your collar?”

  There were shouts of agreement.

  “But I warn you,” said Elizabeth, “she hates men!”

  There was laughter.

  Phyllis looked at her in anger.

  “Do not lower your arms, Slave,” barked Elizabeth.

  Phyllis remained as she was, her head back, her back arched. There were tears in her eyes.

  “She does not think the man lives who can master her,” said Elizabeth. “She does not think the man lives who can make her truly a slave girl!”

  There were cries of derision, much laughter.

  “She is perhaps right!” cried Elizabeth. “Surely none of Ar could make such a wench cry with pleasure!”

  There were some angry shouts from the crowd, but mostly roars of laughter.

  “Would it not be worth five hundred gold pieces,” asked Elizabeth, “to put your leash on this one and lead her home, to teach her the worth of a man of Ar, if worth they have, and then send her weeping and aching to the kettles of the kitchen until she begs to sleep beneath your slave ring?”

  There was a roar of pleasure, of amusement from the crowd.

  Phyllis’ eyes were filled with tears.

  “Lower your arms, Slave,” commanded Elizabeth, and Phyllis did so, stepping back, and went to stand beside Virginia.