by John Norman
I whimpered once.
7
Brundisium
"This is Brundisium!" said one of the girls, peeping out of the wagon. "I am sure of it!"
"I want to be sold here," said another.
"It will depend on the conditions of the market," said another.
"I think we are already past its street of brands," said another.
"We are still within its walls," said another.
"It is one of the greatest ports," said another.
"It is here that the Cosian fleet landed," said another.
We were naked in a slave wagon, our ankles chained to a central bar. The high, squarish framework of the wagon was covered with blue and yellow silk, under which was common canvas. The silk is often removed during bad weather. We had thrust up the canvas and silk, an inch or two, at the top edge of the wagon bed, and, turned and kneeling, some half sitting, half lying, eager, curious, our ankle chains twisted, were peeping out.
"There are still soldiers and sailors of Cos about," said one of the girls.
"There is one," said another girl.
"He is handsome," said another. "I would not mind being owned by him."
That remark I suddenly found disturbing, and frightening. I had accepted that we could be owned, and, indeed, were, but it still frightened me, to hear it spoken of so openly, owned, and by a private master!
"There are the banners of Cos, too, as well as those of Brundisium," said another.
"Yes," said another.
"We must have come from Cos," said one of the girls.
"Perhaps Telnus," said another.
"Yes," agreed the first.
We had apparently come into the keeping of our wholesaler outside the walls of this city, at a temporary slave camp. Two of the Gorean girls with us had learned, or claimed to have learned, that this avoided the taxes levied on commercial transactions within Brundisium. Similarly, of course, such camps presumably had other values, as well. Space outside of a city's walls is usually cheaper to rent than space within its walls. Too, such camps may be moved about, making them more versatile commercially. For example, they may be shifted to areas where women, perhaps because of large-scale raids or the falls of cities, may suddenly be abundant and cheap, and to areas, too, where there may be an unusual increase in retail demand. It also made them, I suppose, more difficult to trace, if anyone were interested in doing that sort of thing. A disadvantage of such camps is that they are more vulnerable to attack than if they were located in, say, housings or courts within a city's walls. On the other hand, they are usually located quite near cities, usually within the sight of their walls, and this tends to reduce to some extent the likelihood of such attacks. In any such camp, of course, and there had been in this one, there are usually several merchants. These are generally both wholesalers and retailers, but primarily wholesalers, for retailers are usually indigenous to given cities. These wholesalers usually distribute to retailers, in their individual cities, or, often, also, in well-known slaving centers, of which there are many, for example, Ar, Ko-ro-ba, Venna, Vonda, Victoria, on the Vosk, Market of Semris, Besnit, Esalinus, Harfax, Corcyrus, Argentum, Torcadino, and others. Most of the wholesalers, I suppose, do have permanent headquarters, somewhere, but they, or their agents, often frequent these camps, as well, availing themselves of the considerable advantages accruing to their trade in such places. The group with which I now was contained had, as had the original coffle, ten girls. Three, however, were new girls, all Goreans, and we now had only seven of the original ten in the wagon. Gloria and Clarissa, as well as myself, interestingly, all the Earth girls, were still with this group. We did not know who the wholesaler was who had handled us. As soon as land had first been sighted, we had again, the original coffle of us, been subjected to our original securities, our hands back-manacled, our mouths gagged, our heads covered with heavy, opaque, buckled, locked hoods. These manacles, gags and hoods, and our neck chain, had been removed only in the cages in the slave tents. This morning we had been put, rather as normal slaves, subjected apparently to only ordinary securities, in the wagon. I think we were all pleased at this new lenience, effective as it still was, in the manner of our keeping. I know I was. We were now, apparently, as nearly as I could tell, being delivered to one or more retail outlets.
"Look!" said one of the girls. "There are so many burned buildings here!"
We saw that what she had said was true, peeping out. It seemed, here, that an entire district, or streets, at least, of buildings, had been burned in this area. It did not seem that the fires had been of recent origin. They may have happened weeks, or months, ago. Indeed, in various places, sometimes between gutted, blackened shells of buildings, there were cleared areas. Here it seemed that burned structures must have been razed, and debris carted away. Here and there, too, supporting this idea, were great heaps of charred timber and rubble, presumably awaiting some disposition. In many places tents and temporary buildings, sometimes little more than shacks, had been erected. Too, here and there, permanent structures, with basements and foundations, and stone walls, seemed clearly to be in the process of construction.
"I am sure this is Brundisium," said the girl who had first spoken. "There was a great fire in Brundisium five months ago."
"Call out to someone," suggested another girl. "Ask."
"Not me," said the first girl. "You call out."
"Clarissa," said one of the Gorean girls. "You ask." She did not mind risking Clarissa. Clarissa had been very popular with the guards. We were all, or those of us who had been with her in the former house, somewhat jealous, I suppose, of her attractiveness to them. We probably all wished we could have been that desirable. She had even received candies. I thought, however, that perhaps if I had not been forced to wear the iron belt, I, too, might have been similarly popular. I, too, might have received a candy or two. I was sure that I, if I had set my mind to it, could have pleased a man, and myself, as well as she! To be sure, I reassured myself, quickly, assuaging a shred of the dignity of the frigid Earth female, still left in me at the time, I would have had no choice in the matter. I would have been whipped, or punished terribly, or perhaps even killed, if I had not. And, certainly, too, guards had been interested in me. More than once, they had investigated, and tested, and seemingly to their anger and disappointment, the obduracy and effectiveness of the metal device in which I had been fastened.
"Gloria," suggested the Gorean girl.
"No!" said Gloria.
"Doreen, then," said the Gorean girl, Ila.
"No, no," I said. I did not want the driver or guard to hear me call out to anyone. I was not interested in being whipped tonight.
"Earth she-urts," said the Gorean girl.
"You do it," said Gloria. I was pleased Gloria spoke up. She was a larger girl. She could stand up to the Gorean girl, who was also a large girl. I was smaller, and afraid of her.
The Gorean girl, Ila, however, did not call out to anyone, either. She, too, was afraid. She, too, as we, belonged to those brutes, men. She, too, no more than we, cared to be placed beneath their imperious, disciplinary lash.
I delighted to look out through the crack between the wood and the canvas and silk. This was a beautiful world, and I reveled in it. I found almost everything I saw different, and interesting, the men and women, the children, the clothes, their accouterments, the streets, the buildings, the tents, the stalls, the trees, the flowers, everything. It seemed so open, and beautiful, and free, though, to be sure, I within it was a slave. I was startled, and a little frightened, even, by the strange, scaled, long-necked, placid, lizardlike quadruped that drew the wagon. These might be human beings, here, but I was not on Earth.
"Oh, no," said one of the Gorean girls, angrily, in frustration. "We are coming to the gate! We are going to be leaving the city!"
Three or four of the other girls, too, Goreans, all moaned in protest.
"I want to be sold here!" said one of them.
"What di
fference does it make?" asked Gloria, peeping out.
"Earth fool," said one of them, "you know nothing! You can wear your collar in a small town, in a camp, in a peasant village, if you want! I want to wear mine in a great city!"
"Let Gloria pull a plow, let her hoe weeds, let her carry water on a great farm," said one of the girls.
"She is too pretty," said another Gorean girl. "No peasant could afford her."
I hoped that I, too, might be too pretty for a peasant to afford.
"One has a much easier life, almost always, in a city," said one of the Gorean girls.
"It depends on your master," said another.
"Yes," agreed another.
I supposed that was true. The most important thing was not whether you were in a city or not, but your master. He would surely be the most important single element in your life. You would belong to him, literally. However, I thought, it might be nice, other things being equal, to live in one of these lovely cities. Also doubtless the labors of a slave in such a city would be easier on the whole than those of one, say, on a farm.
"Pull the canvas down, quickly," said one of the girls. "We are coming to the gate!"
We pulled the canvas and silk down, as best we could, and then, very quietly, turned about and sat in the wagon. We heard papers being checked. Then we heard a man's voice. "Stay as you are. Don't kneel." The canvas at the front of the wagon was opened, and a man, from the floor space before the wagon box, looked in upon us. We sat quietly, not meeting his eyes, naked, the chains on our ankles about the central bar. "Ten kajirae," he said. This word was the plural of 'kajira', which was one of the words, the most common one, for what we were. It means 'slave girl', 'slave woman', 'she-slave', that sort of thing. The brand on my left thigh was a cursive 'kef', the first letter in the word 'kajira'. The best translation is doubtless 'slave girl'. Then he closed the canvas again. Then, in a bit, we had trundled through the gate. Apparently we had only cut through this city, which might be Brundisium, en route to somewhere else. We had saved time, it seemed, taking this route, rather than driving about its walls. It was, I gathered, a large city.
"So, where are we going?" asked one of the Gorean girls, of another.
"Samnium, doubtless Samnium," was the response.
8
The Platform;
The Annex to the Sales Barn
I sat on the long, heavy, wooden platform, raised about a foot above the dirt, one of several in this exposition area, in this annex to the sales barn, naked, my feet tucked back, near my left thigh, my ankles crossed, my left hand on my left ankle, my weight muchly on the palm of my right hand, on the platform. A chain was on my neck, an individual chain. It was about five feet long. It ran from a ring set in the platform to my collar.
We were not in Samnium, but in Market of Semris. This is a much smaller town, south, and somewhat to the east, of Samnium. It is best known, interestingly enough, ironically enough, as an important livestock market. In particular, it is famed for its sales of tarsks. Too, of course, there are markets here for slaves.
"This is not Samnium!" had cried Ila, when the canvas and silk had been pulled aside, and the central bar unlocked from its socket.
"No," said the fellow handling us. "It is Market of Semris."
"Those are tarsk cages!" had cried Ila, when we had been unshackled.
We had been lifted down from the wagon and placed on our feet in a high-walled courtyard. The shackles usually stay with the wagon, particularly when the wagon does not belong to the dealer to whom delivery is being made. The cages to which she referred were to the left, a few feet away, against the wall of the courtyard. There was, too, very strong, the smell of animals in this place.
"Yes," said the fellow. "But tonight tarsks are not being sold, not four-legged tarsks, at any rate."
"I will not be sold here!" cried Ila.
He indicated the cages to our left. We stood there, barefoot, closely together, in the dirt. Too, was straw scattered about. It was muchly broken and trampled. In the dirt there were numerous tracks and prints, many of them of small hoofs, marking perhaps the place of passage of small groups of some sort of animal. Too, there were the tracks of wagon wheels there, and of sandals and boots, and of small, high-arched bare feet, doubtless those of girls. The cages were long, low and narrow, such as may be stacked and tied on long, flatbed wagons. They had stout frames of metal, were floored with sheet metal, and roofed, sided and gated with heavy meshes of a chain-link-type metal, the links passed through, and clinched in, apertures in the frame. As the mesh was formed its openings were about two-inches square.
"I will never get in such a thing!" cried Ila. "Never!"
Then the lash, from behind her, fell upon her, and she sank crying out, reaching behind her, sobbing, to her knees, and then, with the next blow, was flung by its force to her belly in the dirt before the man. Thrice there in the dirt was she struck, writhing and sobbing, begging forgiveness. Then, on her hands and knees, swiftly, at a gesture, she crawled, poked by sharp sticks, hastened by the cry "Quickly, she-tarsk!" to the first of the low, narrow cages and scrambled, weeping, within it. She was a large girl, and formidable to us, except perhaps to Gloria, but, compared to the men, she was only another female, no different from us. Compared to them, her size and strength, really only that of a woman, was, like ours, when all was said and done, simply negligible. Compared to them she was, like us, simply small and weak. Before them, and to them, she could never be any more than we, only another female, small, lovely and helpless, a mere female, totally at their mercy. We looked swiftly, wildly at one another and, in these swiftly exchanged glances, I think, honestly, there was pleasure as well as fear. We were pleased that the insolent Ila, often so pretentious and lofty with us, had been put immediately and sternly, to her instruction and anguish, in her place, that of a female slave, like us. We were glad the men had taken the action they had. We had been reassured by it. In it we had had a demonstration of their firmness and power, of the meaningfulness and reality of their mastery. It had served, too, to remind us all, graphically, of what we all were, women, and slaves, and that we were subject, as such, to them. The insolence of Ila, too, was an embarrassment to us, and, in its way, a reflection on us, and our sex. To be sure, we were also afraid. We did not wish her behavior to draw down the wrath of the men on us all. We were not eager to share the lash with her. We now saw Ila in the cage, her fingers hooked in the mesh, looking out. Her eyes were frightened. In them, too, there was grievous pain. She was a lashed slave. The rest of us then, quickly, at gestures, hurried to the cages, dropped to all fours, and entered them. Two cages sufficed for us all.
* * * *
I sat on the long, heavy, wooden platform, raised about a foot from the dirt, one of several in this exposition area, in this annex to the sales barn, naked, my feet tucked back, near my left thigh, my ankles crossed, my left hand on my left ankle, my weight muchly on the palm of my right hand, on the platform. A chain was on my neck, an individual chain. It was about five feet long. It ran from a ring set in the platform to my collar. On the upper portion of my left breast something was written, inscribed there with a grease pencil. I had heard that it was the number "89." I could not read it. It was my lot number.
"Out, out, hurry!" had said the man this morning, pounding with his pointed stick on the linked, metal mesh of the cage's roof. We had mostly backed out, for the cages were narrow, and then remained there, in the dirt, in the gray light of the early morning, on all fours. During the morning and afternoon of the day before, when we had first arrived in Market of Semris, after we were caged, other wagons had arrived, and unloaded their own fair occupants, they, too, in short order, to be caged. Still later that afternoon some groups of small, fat, grunting, bristly, brindled, shaggy-maned, hoofed, flat-snouted, rooting animals had been herded in, also with pointed sticks, and they, too, had been guided into identical cages. We had looked out of our cage, our fingers hooked in the mesh, to other cages, some o
f them with girls in them, some with the fat, flat-snouted, grunting, short-legged, brindled quadrupeds.
"Those are tarsks," said one of the Gorean girls.
I nodded.
They were not to be sold that night, however, I had gathered. We had learned that that night tarsks were not to be sold, not "four-legged" tarsks, at any rate. I recalled the other footprints we had seen in the dirt, left over, probably, from the day before, those smaller, lovelier, daintier, high-arched prints, doubtless those of girls. I did not know where they were. I would later learn that they were in the exposition area, on the platforms, where we, the next day, would find ourselves. The day in the cage had been warm, and the night, too, had not been unpleasant, but, toward morning, it had turned cool. Happily it had not rained. I shivered. I was glad to be out of the cage, moving now, on my hands and knees, in the dirt, across the courtyard. I had not yet been given clothing on this planet. We had had, however, in the house where I had been trained, blankets in our kennels.
"Stop," had said our herder, he with the stick. "Wait."
We had come to a long, narrow, wooden, caulked, semicircular tanklike container, about two feet wide and ten feet long, half buried in the dirt, its forward edge reached by a low ramp. It was filled with a dark fluid. Here we had to wait while a group of fifteen tarsks, one by one, herded up the ramp, plunged into the fluid and swam to the other side where, scrambling out of the container, they shook themselves, and hastened down the descent ramp.
"Now you two-legged tarsks," said the man, waving toward the container with his stick.
We shuddered. None of us, I am sure, cared to enter that dark fluid.
"Do not swallow the fluid," he said.
We looked at one another, from our hands and knees. We would be sure not to do so. We needed no encouragement in the matter. Clearly it would not be simple water.
"You, first, two-legged tarsk," he said to Ila.
"Yes, Master!" she said, hastening to obey, hurrying up the ramp on all fours and plunging into the dark fluid. In an instant she was in the center of the container. A little past that point, one of the men, reaching over the side of the structure, thrust her head under the fluid. Then, in a moment, she was scrambling out of the container.