by John Norman
"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, laughed. "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, "and turn for the 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.
Then Elizabeth herself strode to the front of the block. "And me!" she laughed. "Which of you would like to put me in steel?"
The crowd roared and stamped, and its men rose to their feet, shouting, pounding their right fists on their left shoulder, in Gorean acclaim.
"I am, I think," cried Elizabeth, laughing, "a not unworthy wench."
There were shouts of agreement.
She pointed a finger at a fine looking fellow, grinning in the audience, a Saddlemaker. "Would you not like to own me?" she asked.
He slapped his knees with his hands and laughed. "That I would!" he cried.
"You!" cried Elizabeth, pointing to a merchant in rich robes in the fifth tier. "Would you not be pleased to have me submit to you?"
"Indeed, Wench," he laughed.
"Is there a man here," asked Elizabeth, "who would not wish to take me in his arms?"
The deafening response, "No!" shouted from thousands of voices shook the amphitheater.
"Who wants me?" she cried.
"I!" came the thousands of responses, making the very
walls ring with their pleasure.
"But," wailed Elizabeth, "I am only a miserable girl without a master." She held her wrists together and out to the crowd, as though they had been braceleted. "Who will buy me?" she wailed.
The thunder of bids was deafening.
Elizabeth backed to the other girls and took each by an arm, and together they came to the front of the block.
"Who will buy us?" called Elizabeth.
"Eight hundred gold pieces!" came one cry.
"Eight hundred and fifty," came another. Then we heard nine hundred and fifty bid, and then, incredibly, a thousand and then a bid for the astounding sum of fourteen hundred pieces of gold.
The auctioneer signaled to the Musicians again and once more, to the shouts of the crowd, while he held open his hand, not yet closing it, taking bids, the girls performed the last moments of Ar's dance of the newly collared slave girl, who dances her joy at the thought that she will soon be in the arms of a strong master. When the dance ended the three girls, slaves, knelt in the position of submission, back on their heels, arms extended, heads lowered, wrists crossed as though for binding; Elizabeth knelt facing the crowd and, perpendicular to her, on her left and right knelt Virginia and Phyllis, a vulnerable, submitted flower of slave girls.
The auctioneer waited for some minutes for the acclaim of the crowd to subside. The last bid he had received had been an astounding fifteen hundred pieces of gold. To my knowledge never in the Curulean had a set of three girls brought such a price. The investment of Cernus had been, it seemed, a good one.
The auctioneer called out to the crowd, now silent. "I will close my fist!"
"Do not close your fist," said Samos, First Slaver of Port Kar.
Deferentially the auctioneer regarded the Slaver of squalid, malignant Port Kar, mistress and scourge of gleaming Thassa.
"Does Samos, First Slaver of Port Kar, mistress and jewel of gleaming Thassa, now care to express interest?"
"He does," said Samos, dispassionately.
"What is the Curulean bid?" inquired the auctioneer.
"It is bid," said the man, "by Samos, First Slaver of Port Kar, for the wenches now on the block three thousand pieces of gold."
There was an audible gasp throughout the audience in the swirling amphitheater.
The auctioneer stepped back, astonished. Even the girls lifted their bowed heads, startled, breaking the discipline of the submitted flower. Then, smiling, Elizabeth lowered her head again, and so, too, did Virginia and Phyllis. I felt sick. Doubtless Elizabeth thought Samos the agent of Priest-Kings, sent to purchase them and carry them to safety and freedom.
Cernus was chuckling.
The fist of the auctioneer closed, as though grasping a handful of golden coins. "The women are sold!" he cried. The crowd shouted its pleasure, its delight.
The girls were now on their feet and whip slaves were braceleting their wrists before their bodies and attaching the lead chains to the bracelets, preparing to conduct the purchased merchandise from the block.
"More barbarians!" cried the crowd. "Let us see more barbarians!"
"You shall!" cried the auctioneer. "You shall! We have many sets of barbarians to present for your consideration and pleasure! Do not be disappointed! There are more! There are many more barbarians to be sold, beautiful and splendid lots, superbly trained!"
The crowd trembled with excitement.
Elizabeth and the other two girls had now been secured, braceleted and on their leashes. The ordeal of the sale over Virginia and Phyllis were weeping. Elizabeth, by remarkable contrast, seemed exceedingly well pleased. When they had turned and were being led from the block by the whip slaves who held their leashes, Cernus spoke to two of the guards behind me. "Throw the fool on his feet," said he. "Let her see him!"
I struggled but could not resist the men who hauled me to my feet.
"Behold an enemy of Cernus!" cried Philemon to the block.
The girls turned and then Elizabeth, peering out into the crowd, for the first time, saw me, in the rag of a slave, my wrists bound behind my back in steel, the helpless captive of Cernus, Slaver, Ubar of Ar.
Her eyes were wide. She stood as though stunned. She put her braceleted hands before her mouth. She shook her head disbelievingly. Then, by the chain and bracelets, she was rudely turned about. She looked back over her shoulder, her eyes wide with horror. Then, fighting the chain and bracelets, she was dragged stumbling down the steps. It was then she understood herself sold. She cried out wildly, helplessly, a long screaming wail of misery and understanding. I heard the sound of a slave whip below the block, the hysterical, wild sobbing and screaming of a slave girl. Then, as she was dragged away, the sound of the slave whip and of her cries grew more distant, and then I could hear them no more.
"Before she is delivered to Samos," Cernus was saying, "I think I will have her returned to the house and use her. She intrigued me this evening. Since she is Red Silk, Samos will not object."
I said nothing.
"Take him away," said Cernus.
In a moment, manacled, a guard holding each arm, I was being conducted from the amphitheater.
The lights of the amphitheater briefly went out, and then flashed on again.
I heard the crowd cry out.
I heard the auctioneer making his call for the first bid. I knew that behind me, on the block, there would be a new lot for sale, more to please the buyers of Ar.
20 — A GAME IS PLAYED
"This," cried Cernus, lifting his cup aloft, "is a night for rejoicing and amusement!"
Never had I seen the customarily impassive Slaver so elated as on this night, following the sales in the Curulean. The feast was set late in the hall of Cernus and the wine and paga flowed freely. The girls chained at the wall for the amusement of his guards clutched drunkenly, ecstatically, at those who used them. Guards stumbled about with goblets in their hands. The Warriors of Cernus sang at the tables. Roasted tarsks on long spits were borne to the tables on the shoulders of nude slave girls. Girls still in training, unclothed as well, served wine this night of feasting. Musicians wildly, drunkenly, picked and pounded at their instruments.
Hooded, stripped to the waist, chained, I had been beaten from one end of the room to the other with sticks.
Now, unhooded, but chained, I knelt bloody before the dais of Cernus.
A few feet from me, wretched, dazed, chained like I before the dais of our master, knelt Elizabeth Cardwell, her only garment the chain of Cernus, with its medallion of the tarn and slave chains, about her throat.
To one side, to my dismay, I saw Relius and Ho-Sorl chained. Near them, kneeling, her wrists and ankles bound with slender, silken ropes, knelt Sura, head forward, her hair touching the floor.
The doll which she had so loved, which she had had from her mother, which she had attacked me with the slave goad at the kill point, lay on the tiles before her, torn asunder, destroyed.
"What is their crime?" I had asked Cernus.
"They would have freed you," laughed Cernus. "The men we apprehended after severe fighting, trying to cut their way to you when you lay in the dungeon. The woman tried, with paga and jewels, to bribe the guards."
I shook my head. I could not understand why Relius and Ho-Sorl would make my cause theirs, nor why Sura, though I knew she cared for me, would so risk her life, now doubtless lost. I had done little to deserve such friends, such loyalty. I felt now in my plight that I had betrayed not only Elizabeth, and the other girls, and the Priest-Kings, but perhaps allies even unknown to me, among them perhaps Relius, Ho-Sorl, Sura, others. How overcome I felt, with fury, with rage, with helplessness. I looked across to Elizabeth, the chain of Cernus looped about her neck, staring numbly, woodenly, down at the tiles of the hall, half in shock.
I had failed them all.
"Bring Portus!" called Cernus.
The Slaver who had been chief competitor to the House of Cernus was brought forward, doubtless from the dungeons of the Central Cylinder
of Ar, on order of its Ubar, Cernus, once of the Merchants, now of the Caste of the Warriors.
Portus, half wasted now, his skin hanging about his frame, was brought, manacled, stripped to the waist, to the square of sand.
His manacles were removed and a naked hook knife was thrust in his trembling hand.
"Please oh mighty Cernus!" he whined. "Show mercy!"
The slave whom I had originally seen victorious in the sport of hook knife sprang to the sand and began to stalk Portus.
"Please, Cernus!" cried Portus as a long line of blood burst open across his chest. "Please! Please! Caste Brother!" he cried, as the slave, swift, eager, laughing, struck him again and again, with impunity. Then Portus tried to fight but, weakened, unskilled, clumsy, he stumbled about, being again and again streaked with blood, no cut mortal. At last he fell into the sand covered with blood at the feet of the laughing slave, quivering, whining, unable to move.
"Feed him to the beast," said Cernus.
Whimpering, Portus was dragged from the sand, leaving blood across the tiles, and was taken from the hall.
"Bring the Hinrabian!" called Cernus.
I was startled. The entire Hinrabian family, in caravan, had been ambushed, months ago, shortly after leaving the vicinity of Ar enroute to the desert city of Tor. It was assumed the entire family had been destroyed. The only body not recovered had been that of Claudia Tentia Hinrabia, who had been originally the unfortunate victim of the intrigues of Cernus, the means whereby was brought about the downfall of the house of Portus.
I heard, far off, a weird scream, that of Portus, and a wild, savage cry, almost of roar.
Those in the hall trembled.
"The beast has been fed," said Cernus, chuckling, drinking wine, spilling some of it down his face.
A slave girl was brought, a slim girl, in yellow Pleasure Silk, with short black hair, dark eyes, high cheekbones.
She ran timidly and knelt before the dais.
I gasped, for it was Claudia Tentia Hinrabia, once the spoiled daughter of a Ubar of Ar, now a rightless wench in bondage, not unlike thousands of others in Glorious Ar.
She looked about herself, with wonder. I doubted that she had been before in that room.