by John Norman
There were two empty manacles on the chain before Ellen. They, with their chains, were before her, waiting, lying in the dirt.
From an area of chains and stakes she saw two girls being conducted toward her chain. Each was bent over, held in leading position, both in the handling of one keeper. They were then released and knelt, and then commanded to bow their heads and lift their left wrists. They were then roughly entered onto the chain, each by the left wrist. They were then ordered to their feet, as had been the others. The lot number of the one manacled before Ellen, which number she had seen as she had been brought forward, was again similar to her own. Was it higher, or lower? “How beautiful she is,” thought Ellen. “Is she more beautiful than I?”
A scribe, with papers, was nearby, and, in a moment, began to course the chain.
“115,” he said, of the first girl on the chain.
“116,” he said, of the second girl on the chain.
It was not the scribe she had known from the exhibition cage or the silken enclosure of the preceding evening.
“Put your head up, girl,” said the scribe.
“Yes, Master,” said Ellen.
“117,” he said, of Ellen.
He made notes in his papers, as he coursed the line.
“118,” he said of the girl behind her, the blonde.
So she before me is a lower number, and she after me a higher number, thought Ellen.
And are not the lower numbers the most beautiful?
Are the two slaves before me truly more beautiful than I, she wondered. And can it be that she behind me, so beautiful, is less beautiful than I?
Surely we are all much the same, and yet men, the brutes, rank us, and will buy and sell us! As it pleases them! As goods! But, of course, as the goods we are!
But might not I bring a higher price than any of these others?
But that is for men to decide?
In what order will we be sold?
Will they take any bid on us? Or will they place a reserve on us? But there were twenty-one bids on me, even from the exhibition cages! And then I was danced, as a slave!
Men will want me!
Have I not seen their eyes on me?
I am a desirable slave!
How startling once, so long ago, would have been such a thought!
Yet, was bondage, even then, so alien to me? Had I not, even then, wondered about such things, amidst my papers and pretensions, amongst my articles, my books, my vagaries, my dusts, my boredoms and aridities? How I despised the male weaklings I knew, so gullible, so easily manipulated, so spineless and accommodating, so softened, so self-betrayed, so twisted, reduced and crippled! How I dreamed of being taken in hand, stripped and collared, of being chained, of being imperiously ravished, of being mastered! How I would have accepted, even pleaded for, a stroke of my lord’s lash, that I might the better know myself uncompromisingly his. Yes, long ago, on Earth, in my most secret dreams, in my most feared and forbidden, but persistent, exciting, delicious and fascinating thoughts, I wondered what it might be to be a slave! I had wondered, too, what I might be truly worth, if anything, what I might bring in an open market, sold raw, as a mere vended female. Now it seems I shall learn!
The scribe was then well behind her, farther back down the line. In a few moments, she again heard his voice. “Take them to the ready area,” he said.
The lead girl, whom Ellen understood to be 115, was then put in leading position, bent over, a hand in her hair, and, as she whimpered, she was conducted from the area, amongst various cages, shelters, tents and stakes, toward distant sounds of men, shouts and calls, and the rest of the chain followed. Ellen was pleased she was not lead girl.
****
Ellen had knelt in the tiny cage, confined there, grasping the bars, waiting. Every muscle in her body had seemed to ache. The cage was of the sort commonly used for a disciplinary device, one in which an errant slave might be incarcerated pending the subsidence of a master’s ire. In such a device her contrition quickly becomes authentic, her lessons are learned and her ways mended. Powerful resolutions of improved service are quickly formed in that small space. It is the sort of device into which a proud free woman might be thrust but out of which creeps a humbled, self-acknowledged slave, asking only to be permitted to please, in any way the master might wish. Such cages are designed for the small body of a woman, and this particular cage had been designed for a small woman.
It was the evening, at about the 14th Ahn, following Ellen’s performance in the silken enclosure.
The bars in the cage, which had a metal roof and floor, were set some two inches apart, to make it impossible for an aching limb to be thrust through the openings. One can sit, knees drawn up, or kneel, or crouch in such a cage, but, obviously, one cannot stand in it, or stretch out in it. If one lies down in it one must have one’s knees pulled tightly up. One’s relief is merely to change from one cramped position to another. In time a considerable amount of body pain is built up. It is rather like close chains, in this respect.
Ellen was aware that a small chain was being formed, which was approaching her cage.
She did not know if she were to be added to that chain, or to another. Several chains had passed her cage.
“Please let me out of the cage,” thought Ellen. “Oh, please, masters, let me out!”
Selius Arconious, she recalled, had suggested that she be confined “straitly,” and the scribe, to whom he had given some fifteen tarsk-bits, buying her blows, had found this not only agreeable, but, given his earlier rancor, eminently fitting.
And so she had been put into the tiny cage.
“This is the smallest of the woman cages?” had asked the guardsman, her tether looped about his left wrist.
“Yes,” had said the attendant.
She had then been knelt before the cage, and there the guardsman had removed the tether from her wrists, that on which she had been conducted thither, as might have been a verr, from the area of the silken enclosure where she, and other slaves, had been put to the entertainment of men.
Kneeling before the small enclosure, she had regarded it with dismay.
The gate was swung open.
“In, slut,” she was told.
She went to all fours before the tiny opening. She cried out in surprise, pain, and humiliation, kicked. Then she scrambled hastily, awkwardly, within. She heard the guardsman laugh. She felt the bars against her body. Her feet were lifted, that the door could be shut. Then it was closed behind her. She faced the back of the cage, with its bars. She heard the two locks put in place, behind her. She twisted about, with difficulty, cramped, brushing, turning, against the bars, to face the front of the small confinement. Then she had knelt within, in misery, and grasped the bars of the gate. She had looked out. She could hardly be seen within, given the narrow spaces between the bars.
“Please, Master,” she had protested, dismayed.
“Be silent, slave girl,” said the attendant.
“Yes, Master.”
“You can hardly see her,” said the guardsman.
“It will be easy enough to see her later,” said the attendant, “when she is on the block.”
“In the future,” said the guardsman to the incarcerated slave, “perhaps you will be less stupid.”
“It is my hope that that will be so,” said Ellen.
“It had better be,” he said.
“Yes, Master,” said Ellen.
He had then left.
A moment later, with a jangle of keys, the attendant, too, had left.
Ellen had grasped the bars. “Selius Arconious has done this to me,” she had said to herself. “How I hate him!”
The sales had commenced yesterday evening, and some three to four hundred women had been swiftly vended, of diverse quality, some in lots. The strategy of the vendors, it seemed, was to mix lots in such a way as to have excellent goods available for all three nights of the sale. The average sale took only two or three Ehn. But it was r
umored, nonetheless, that the next day’s sales, the third day’s sales, would begin in the early afternoon, to ensure the disposal of all the merchandise. The Cosians, it seemed, had not anticipated that there would be intense, competitive bidding on so many girls. But the buyers, clearly, had a greater interest in several of the items marketed than the Cosians, in effect, wholesalers, had anticipated. There were many professional slavers in attendance, of course. They, clearly, on the whole, were interested in picking up cheap girls for training and subsequent resale, the first buys in the festival camp being understood largely as speculations or investments.
Ellen’s cage, and some similar cages, but most much larger, some even like exhibition cages, containing several girls, were within a large, canvas-walled area, the canvas strung upon and held upright by poles, behind and adjacent to the sales area itself, with its great block at one end, a block some two yards in height and twenty feet in diameter with broad, flat steps on each side, by means of which merchandise might be brought conveniently to its surface and, subsequently, with similar ease, taken from it. The auditorium, so to speak, was open to the air, and consisted of several ascending tiers of closely spaced benches, these arranged in semicircles on a shallow hill, at the foot of which was the block. The block itself, after dark, would be illuminated by torchlight.
****
Ellen followed in line, in pain, almost hobbling, scarcely able to walk. The scribe of the exhibition cages and silken enclosure, it seems, had certainly been wrong about one thing. When she was taken from the cage she would not run to the block. She could scarcely walk to it.
But, as she walked, gradually, in this activity, in virtue of this gentle movement, in virtue of this concomitant stretching and exercising of her limbs, much of her body pain began to dissipate.
“I am going to be sold,” she said to herself. “I wonder if any of my former male colleagues would care to bid on me, and own me. Or would they buy me to free me? Could they be that stupid? Probably. Would they relinquish the opportunity to own something as precious, as delicious and desirable as I am? Perhaps. One supposes so. Or would this be the opportunity of which they have secretly dreamed? Perhaps some of them, who knows, dreamed of me at their feet, naked, in their chains. I wonder then if they would be so stupid as to free me? Probably, as they are such asses. And I suppose I would have to pretend to be grateful! But perhaps some would not be so stupid as to free me. There is, after all, a Gorean saying that only a fool frees a slave girl. But the men I knew were surely fools. They would probably free me. One does not know. But in any event I do not think I would care to belong to one of them. I do not think they would know what to do with me. I do not think they would know what to do with a slave girl.”
Ellen conjectured that her chain, which consisted of twenty slaves, presumably numbers 115 through 134, would soon be in the vicinity of the great block. Her conjecture was nearly, if not entirely, correct, as her chain was led into a ready lane, one of several, which was within, say, fifty yards of the block. There were a number of lanes, marked out with stakes and strung ribbons, and in each of these lanes, or rather within each which was occupied, there was a line of chained, waiting slaves. These slaves were muchly at their ease, resting, sitting, kneeling, lying down, subject only to the constraints of their manacling, Some were speaking softly to one another. Some, on the other hand, were white-faced and apprehensive, particularly those in the lanes nearest the empty lanes closest to the block area. The mode of the chaining for the girls in each lane was the same as in Ellen’s group, all being left-wrist linked.
Ellen’s group was led into one of the lanes. “This is your lane,” said a keeper. “You will stay here until shortly before your sale. You may be much as you like here, even permitted gentle speech, but you may not rise to your feet without permission.”
“Master,” said 115, “may I speak?”
He regarded her, and a moment’s annoyance crossed his features, a tiny thing, but one which brought apprehension to the chain but then, seemingly, he found her pleasing.
“Yes,” he said.
“She is surely beautiful,” thought Ellen. “I suppose one such as she is more likely to be granted such privileges than others. I wager she knows, the luscious vixen, how beautiful she is. Did that give her courage? I wager it did. I wonder if I would have been granted permission to speak. Perhaps. But then there is little risked by a girl’s requesting permission to speak. One would be seldom punished for that. And how else is a girl to speak if she may not ask for permission to do so?”
“How long, Master,” asked 115, “before our sale?”
“How bold she is,” thought Ellen.
“I think,” said he, surveying the lanes, and their waiting occupants, the lengths of the chains and such, “better than two Ahn.”
“That is a long time,” thought Ellen.
“Thank you, Master,” said 115.
“I think he would like to have her,” thought Ellen. “I wonder if he would like to have me, too. Perhaps. I suspect that I would do for him, and do quite well.”
“You will later be fed and watered, and permitted to relieve yourselves,” said the keeper.
“Yes, Master, thank you, Master,” said 115.
The keeper then turned away, and, later, returned with another chain. That chain would occupy the next lane. And, similarly, from time to time, he, or others, brought new chains to various lanes in the ready area.
Ellen lifted her wrist, and looked at the manacle upon it. She could not slip it, of course. She lay down between 116 and 118, and stretched her body, in almost feline luxury. How good to be out of the cage! She looked up at the sky.
Then, for a moment, she was angry with men.
“They put me in a cage, a cage!” she thought. “By what right did they put me in a cage? By what right was I caged? By what right do these Gorean beasts arrogate to themselves the right to cage women, or women such as I?” And then she felt how stupid was her question. It was an Earth question, a question from another world, a distant, superficial, polluted, noisy, unnatural, artificial world, a question from another ethos, one not one with nature, but one at war with nature; it was not a biological question, not a natural question, not a Gorean question. “Obviously they have every right to do so,” she said to herself. “They have the right of masters, the obvious right of masters, to do with us, their slaves, as they please. Have you not yet learned the nature of this world, and what you are on this world? What a silly little vulo you are! What a stupid little pudding you are!”
Later, rising to a half-reclining, half-sitting position, she brought her legs together, to one side, with smooth, swift, sinuous grace. “Oh,” she thought, suddenly, “you did that without thinking. You, indeed, are now a slave girl. How shameless you are, you branded little tart!” And she smiled to herself, pleased.
She could hear the sounds of the crowd, it seemed far off, like distant surf, vague cries, calls, shouts, crashings, rumblings, responses.
“They are selling women,” she thought. “And I, too, am to be sold. I cannot prevent this. None of us can prevent this. We are helpless, absolutely helpless. But that is fitting for us, that we should be absolutely helpless, for we are slaves.”
There was the sound of a gong, which signified that another sale had been concluded.
“How strange it suddenly seems to me,” thought Ellen, “that I, an Earth woman, should be here, on this world, with these others, waiting to be sold.” But then, upon reflection, in the context of her abduction, the smoothness, care and efficiency with which it was conducted, and given the predations of slavers upon Earth, and their access to techniques and vehicles capable of at least interplanetary spacefaring, and the market for such as she on this world, then, in this larger context, her situation did not seem so untoward or inexplicable at all. Its hue of strangeness was no more than an illusion, a distortion, perceived through a prism of ignorance. To a native glass beads may appear strange. And she had no doubt but what
had happened to her had happened to a great many of her former world. She suspected that her status, her condition, her situation, her fate, her fortune, her experiences and such, those of an Earth woman brought to Gor as a slave, were not unique to her. Doubtless they were shared by many of her former world.
From time to time, the gong sounded.
Then she said to herself, “In any event, you are now no longer an Earth woman, but only a Gorean slave girl. That is what you are now, and all you are now!”
She wondered if lovely Dara, who had danced yesterday evening in the ba-ta circle, who had taken the bracelet from her in the area of preparation, who had been lashed by the exterior whip master, who had had the low number 51, had been sold. She thought it likely, as Dara had had such a low number. On the other hand, they might save her for the last night. It was up to the masters. Ellen envied Dara her low number.
Somewhat later Ellen’s lane was fed. A slave girl with a bucket of thickened slave gruel went down the line and those in the lane were permitted, one after the other, to reach into the bucket with their free hand, and were permitted to keep what they could hold in one hand. A second girl, carrying a large, flat, wicker tray, brought wedges of bread, cut from flat, rounded loaves, and gave one to each slave. Ellen had learned in the coffle, days ago, that it was not wise to ask for more.
The sales proceeded.
Ellen was thirsty, but she supposed that water would be provided later. Certainly that was among the bits of information which had been secured by 115.
She was grateful to 115, for her boldness, however deferentially it had been proffered, and the welcome intelligence she had managed to obtain. She herself, less confidant, would have been reluctant to inquire. She would not have wanted to be lashed. But there was something for being first on the chain, of course. That did, in effect, make one a likely spokesman or representative of one’s fellows. Too, she was undeniably beautiful. Beautiful slaves often, it seemed, were accorded preferential treatment. This did not, of course, increase their popularity with their sisters in bondage. To be sure, some masters, perhaps aware of the latent dangers of such tendencies to laxness make it a practice to be particularly severe with beautiful slaves, and then the beauties are kept in so fierce and orderly a discipline that it requires great courage for them to do so much as lift their eyes to those of their master.