Assassin of Gor coc-5

by John Norman

  "The sales go well," said Cernus to me.

  Again I refused to respond to him.

  Some of the girls, as the sales progressed, I recognized as from the House of Cernus. Lana, I recognized, who was sold for four gold pieces. Lot followed lot, and the bidding, on the whole, tended to increase. Usually the better merchandise is saved for later in the evening, and many of the buyers were waiting. Particularly, I suspected, were they waiting for the more than one hundred barbarians that Cernus had promised them, girls kidnapped from Earth to be Gorean pleasure slaves.

  Occasionally, during the evening, the auctioneer had dropped certain disparaging remarks about barbarians, comparing some of the beauties on the block to such. The crowd had growled at these remarks, and Cernus had smiled. I supposed the auctioneer had received his instructions from the House of Cernus. The auctioneer was to appear skeptical, cynical.

  I myself, in spite of my predicament, found myself being awestruck, again and again, by the beauty, the performances, the dances of the girls who were, lot by lot, brought before us; how beautiful are women, how fantastic, how tormenting, how superb, how marvelous, how excruciatingly maddening, and beautiful and marvelous they are!

  At last, late in the evening, the auctioneer remarked, with something of a sneer, that the first barbarian would be presented, and to remember that he had warned them to expect nothing.

  The crowd cried out angrily, "The barbarian! The barbarian!"

  I was startled when I saw the girl brought forth. It was perhaps the plainest of all the barbarians who had been brought on the black ships; though I knew the girl to be among the most intelligent, and also, I had heard, among the most responsive. She was an extremely quick-witted, lively girl, though perhaps somewhat plain. Now, however, as I saw her shuffled across the boards, stiff, wrapped in a worn, dark blanket, she looked dull, stupid. Her eyes didn't seem to focus, and her tongue occasionally protruded at the side of her mouth. She scratched herself, and looked about herself, seemingly obtuse and surly.

  The crowd was taken aback, for such a wench would scarcely be presented on the meanest block of the smallest market in the city. I myself was startled, for I had seen the girl before and knew her somewhat; this was not her real person; the crowd, of course, would not know that. The auctioneer, as though desperately, tried to do his best for the girl, but soon jeers were forthcoming from the crowd, hissings and shoutings; when her blanket was removed from her, gracefully by the auctioneer, as though removing an expensive wrap from a lady of pearls and sophistication, she slouched so that one might have thought her back had been built in pieces, haphazardly; the crowd cried out in fury.

  The auctioneer, apparently losing his temper, responded angrily to some critics in the first tiers, and was himself hooted and decried. The girl seemed to understand nothing. Then, when poked with the slave goad, she called out in a nasal tone, not her own, in painfully, apparently memorized Gorean, "Buy me, Masters." The crowd howled with disgust and laughter. The auctioneer seemed beside himself.

  The auctioneer, subtly, or apparently so, then administered the Slaver's caress to her, but she scarcely noted the touch. Then I understood what was going on, perhaps belatedly, for I knew the girl, Red Silk before the black ships, was extremely responsive, and had even been used in the hall of Cernus for the amusement of his Warriors and guards; she had known the caress would be given; she had been ready; she had perhaps, in fact probably, been anesthetized. The crowd hooted and screamed for her to be taken away, while she looked at them in puzzlement, like a bosk cow, scarcely comprehending or concerned. I angrily admired the skill of Cernus. Doubtless, after this, the next lot would be his finest, and the comparison with this girl would be so startling as to cause men to forget the beauties who had preceded her; after this girl, a magnificent actress, the plainest of presentable women would have seemed brilliantly attractive; and a truly beautiful woman or women would be stunning beyond comparison.

  "What am I offered for this slave?" called the auctioneer.

  There were jeers and cries.

  Yet when he persisted, there were some token offers, perhaps by men who wished to obtain a kettle girl for next to nothing; I was not surprised to note that each time a legitimate offer was made, though small, it was topped slightly by a fellow in the robes of the Metal Workers, whom I knew to be a guard in the house of Cernus; at last, this agent of Cernus had purchased her back for the House for only seventeen copper tarn disks. I knew later, perhaps in another city, she would be well presented and would bring a good price.

  The auctioneer, as though in the throes of misery, almost threw the poor girl back down the stairs of the block, kicking her bit of dark blanket angrily after her.

  He glared at the crowd. "I told you!" he cried. "Barbarians are nothing!"

  The auctioneer conferred with a market official, who kept lists of lot numbers and confirmed the bids and final sale with the buyers or their agents at the side of the block. The auctioneer looked dejected when he returned to the center of the block.

  "Forgive me, Brothers and Sisters of my City, Glorious Ar," he begged, "for I must bring yet more barbarians before you."

  The crowd, or much of it, stormed to its feet. I even heard some angry pounding on the wooden screens surrounding the box of Cernus. But Cernus only smiled. They screamed imprecations on the auctioneer, on the Curulean, even some of the braver ones, anonymous in the pressing throng, on the House of Cernus itself.

  "Observe closely," said Cernus to me.

  Again I did not deign to respond to the Slaver, now Ubar of Ar.

  Suddenly the lights of the amphitheater went out, plunging that great, crowded room into darkness. There were shouts of surprise from the crowd, some screams of startled women. Then, after a moment, the great block, and that alone, was again illuminated with a blaze of light. The crowd shouted its pleasure.

  It was as though the sales were beginning again, and now truly for the first time.

  The auctioneer sprang to the block and, from the darkness at the foot of the steps, was hurled a chain leash, and then two more. He held them for a moment and then, keeping them taut, stepped back. He met resistance. Below, in the darkness, there came the sudden, startling, savage report of a slave whip, snapped three times.

  Then, regally, in black cloaks, with hoods, three women, two girls and their leader, climbed the stairs to the block, backs straight, heads high, their features concealed in the folds of the hood. Each of them had her wrists braceleted before her body, and each slave chain led to the slave bracelets of the one of the girls; the lead girl, probably Elizabeth, was on a somewhat shorter chain than the two behind her, one on each side, doubtless Virginia and Phyllis. Their black cloaks were rather like ponchos with hoods, save that there were slits through which their arms emerged. The length of the cloak, which was full and flowing, fell to their ankles. Their feet, of course, were bare. They stood near the center of the block, their leashes in the hands of the auctioneer.

  "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. He
r 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 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 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 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 not 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 response 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 t
here 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.

  "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 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.