by John Norman
“Are there any more challengers?” I inquired.
The room was quiet. I bent down to a small table near the sand to gather in my winnings.
“A silver tarsk,” said a voice, not a pleasant one.
I straightened up.
A fellow was now standing, some fifty feet across the room. I had seen the table there earlier. About it had sat some seven or eight fellows, unshaven, dour chaps. Several of them were scarred. Two wore earrings. More than one wore a handkerchief knotted about his head, in the manner of some oarsmen, that their heads be protected from the sun. All were armed.
“Kind Sirs, no!” called out Tasdron, the tavern’s proprietor.
There was a sudden sound, that of a short metal blade slipping from a sheath.
“A silver tarsk,” said the fellow again, holding the drawn blade. Goreans, I knew, seldom drew steel unless they intended to make use of it.
I swallowed hard.
“I am not familiar with steel,” I said, as pleasantly as I could manage.
“You should not carry it, then,” said the man. Several of his fellows laughed.
“The combat, as has been made clear,” said Tasdron, his voice shaking, “is to be unarmed.”
“Pick up your blade,” said the fellow to me. I saw the point of the short sword move slightly. He gestured to my clothes, and pouch and blade, which lay nearby.
“I cannot fight you with steel,” I said. “I am not skilled with it.”
“Run,” whispered Tasdron.
“Close the exits,” said the fellow to some of the men with him. Four of them rose up, one going to the side door, one to the door to the kitchen, and two to the main threshold. They, stood there. Their steel, too, was now drawn. At the table, still sitting, were two other men. One of them seemed in his presence as though he might be the group’s leader. He observed me, and quaffed paga.
“Pick up your blade,” said the fellow.
“No,” I said.
“Very well,” said he. “The choice is yours.” He stepped about his table and then, carefully, watching me, advanced. He stopped about ten feet from me. Then, suddenly, he kicked a table from in front of him to the side, clearing a path to me. Two men scrambled away from the table. A paga slave, cowering in the background, screamed.
“I am unarmed,” I said.
He advanced another step. I watched the point of that blade move.
“He is new in Victoria,” said Tasdron, desperately. “Take his clothes, his money, his things. Let him live!”
But the fellow did not even glance at Tasdron. He took another step closer.
I backed away, and then felt the tables behind me, against my legs.
“I am unarmed,” I said.
The fellow grinned, and advanced another step.
“Permit me to seize up my weapon,” I said.
He grinned again, and advanced yet another step. I knew I did not have time to turn and clutch at the weapon in its sheath on the table, with my pouch and clothes, and even had I been able to reach it and remove it from the sheath I did not think it would do me much good. I saw how this man handled steel, and I saw that the blade itself was much marked. It had seen a plenitude of combat. Before him, even with the blade in my grasp, I would have been, I knew, for all practical purposes, defenseless.
“I am unarmed,” I said “Is it your intention to kill me in cold blood?”
“Yes,” said the fellow.
“Why?” I asked.
“It will give me pleasure,” he said I saw the blade draw back.
“Hold!” called a voice.
The fellow stepped back, and looked past me. I turned about. There, about twenty feet away, in a dirty woolen himation, stood a tall, unshaven man. Though he seemed disreputable he stood at that moment very straight.
“Do you, Fellow,” said he, addressing me, “desire a champion?”
The man was armed. Over his left shoulder there hung a leather sheath. He had not deigned, however, to draw the blade.
“Who are you?” asked the fellow who had been threatening me.
“Do you desire a champion?” asked the man of me.
“Yes,” I said.
“Who are you?” demanded the fellow who had been threatening me.
“Do you force me to draw my blade?” asked the tall man. The hair on the back of my neck rose when he had said this.
“Who are you?” demanded the man who had threatened me, taking another step back.
The man did not speak. Rather, with one hand, he threw back the himation, over his shoulders. There was a cry in the tavern.
I saw that the fellow wore the scarlet of the warrior.
“No,” said the man who had been threatening me. “I do not force you to draw your blade.” He then backed away. When he reached his table he thrust his own blade angrily into his sheath. He then, with the fellows who had guarded, the doors, left the tavern.
“Paga, paga for all!” called Tasdron. Paga slaves rushed to pour paga. “Music!” he called. Five musicians, who had been near the kitchen, hurried to their places. Tasdron, too, clapped his hands twice and a dancing slave, portions of her body painted, ran to the sand.
Unsteadily I went to the table of the tall man. He seemed to pay me small attention. When the girl poured him paga his hand shook as he reached for it. He lifted it, suddenly, spilling some to the table, to his lips. He was shaking. “I owe you my life,” I said. “Thank you.”
“Go away,” he said. His eyes then seemed glazed. No longer did he seem so proud and strong as he had before, in that brief moment when he had confronted the fellow who had threatened me. His hands shook on the paga goblet. “Go away,” he said.
“I see that you still wear the scarlet, Callimachus,” said a voice.
“Do not mock me,” said the man at the table.
I saw that he who spoke was he whom I had taken to be the leader of the ruffians at the far table, one of whose number had threatened me. He himself had neither supported nor attempted to deter the fellow who had threatened me. He held himself above squabbles in common taverns, I gathered.
I took him to be a man of some importance.
“It has been a long time since we met in the vicinity of Port Cos,” said the fellow who had come to the table.
The man at the table, sitting, he who had saved me, held the goblet of paga, and said nothing.
“This part of the river,” said the standing man, “is mine.”
Then he looked down at the sitting fellow. “I bear you no hard feelings for Port Cos,” he said.
The sitting man drank. His hands were unsteady.
“You always were a courageous fellow, Callimachus,” said the standing man. “I always admired that in you. Had you not been concerned to keep the codes, you might have gone far. I might have found a position for you even in my organization.”
“Instead,” said the man sitting at the table, “we met at Port Cos.”
“Your gamble this night was successful,” said the standing roan. “I would advise against similar boldnesses in the future, however.”
The sitting man drank.
“Fortunately for you, my dear Callimachus, my friend Kliomenes, the disagreeable fellow who left the tavern, earlier, does not know you. He does not know, as I do, that your eye is no longer as sharp as once it was, that your hand has lost its cunning, that you are now ruined and fallen, that the scarlet is now but meaningless on your body, naught but a remembrance, an empty recollection of a vanished glory.”
The sitting man again drank.
“If he knew you as I do,” said the standing man, “you would now be dead.”
The sitting man looked into the goblet, now empty, on the table. His hands clutched it. His fingers were white. His eyes seemed empty. His cheeks, unshaven, were pale and hollow.
“Paga!” called the standing man. “Paga!” A blond girl, nude, with a string of pearls wound about her steel collar, ran to the table and, from the bronze vessel, on its str
ap, about her shoulder, poured paga into the goblet before the seated man. The fellow who stood by the table, scarcely noticing the girl, placed a tarsk bit in her mouth, and she fled back to the counter where, under the eye of a paga attendant, she spit the coin into a copper bowl. There seemed to me something familiar about the girl, but I could not place it.
“Drink, Callimachus,” said the standing man. “Drink.”
The seated man, unsteadily, lifted the paga to his lips.
Then he who had stood by the table turned about and left. I backed away from the table.
“The fellow who threatened me,” I said to Tasdron, the proprietor of the tavern, “he called Kliomenes. Who is he?”
“He is Kliomenes, the pirate, lieutenant to Policrates,” said Tasdron.
“And the other,” I asked, “he who was standing by the table, speaking to the man who saved me?”
“His captain,” said Tasdron, “Policrates himself.”
I swallowed, hard.
“You are fortunate to be alive,” said Tasdron. “I think perhaps you should leave Victoria.”
“At what time do the sales begin in the sales barn of Lysander?” I asked.
“They have already begun,” said Tasdron.
Hurriedly I ran to the table where I had left my things. I drew on my clothes and hastily slung my sword over my left shoulder. I picked up my winnings from the fighting. I saw the blond girl, she who had the pearls wrapped about her collar, looking at me. It seemed to me that I had seen her somewhere. I placed my winnings in my pouch, and tied it at my belt. I could not recall if, or where, or when, I might have seen her. She was a not unattractive slave. Then I hurried out the door. I made my way rapidly toward the sales barn of Lysander.
Chapter 9 - WHAT OCCURRED AT THE SALES BARN OF LYSANDER.
“This red-haired beauty,” called the auctioneer, “is catch of Captain Thrasymedes. She can play the lute.”
There was raucous laughter. “How good is she in the furs?” called a voice.
The girl went for four copper tarsks.
“Have the girls of Kliomenes been sold?” I asked a fellow.
“Yes,” said a fellow. I cried out with anguish. “Most,” said another.
“Most?” I pressed him.
“Yes,” he said, “I think there are others, taken near Lara.”
“What am I offered for this blonde?” called the auctioneer.
“Weren’t they sold before?” asked the first fellow.
“Not all, I think,” said the second man.
I left their sides and pushed through the crowd, making my way nearer the high, round, sawdust-strewn block.
“Watch where you are going, Fellow,” snarled a man.
I stopped by the ready cage. Inside, sitting on a wooden bench, behind stout, closely-set bars, miserable, clutching sheets about themselves, some with glazed eyes, sat some ten girls. I clutched the bars, from the outside, looking within. She whom I sought was not there. One girl rose from the bench, her left ankle pulling against the chain and shackle that held her with the others, and dropped the sheet to her waist. “Buy me,” she begged, putting her hand toward me. I stepped back. “This is not an exhibition cage,” said an attendant, putting his hand on my arm. “You may not loiter here.”
“Buy me,” begged the girl, reaching toward me. I gathered that she, unlike several of the others, apparently, had had masters. “Are these all the items that remain for sale?” I asked the attendant. “No,” he said. “Are there girls of Kliomenes who remain to be sold?” I asked, desperately. “I do not know,” he said. “I do not have the manifests.”
Miserably I turned about and went back to stand with the others, in the vicinity of the block.
The blonde went for six tarsks.
“And here,” said the auctioneer, “we have another blonde. This one, like many of the girls now in the ready cage, was free.”
There was laughter. “Make her kiss the whip!” called a man.
“Down, Wench, and kiss the whip!” ordered the auctioneer. The girl knelt and kissed the whip. There was more laughter. He then began to put her through slave paces.
There were some two hundred men at the sale. Such sales occur frequently in the various sales barns of Victoria, sometimes running for several nights in a row. The spring and summer are the busiest seasons, for these are the seasons of heaviest river, traffic and, accordingly, the seasons when pirates, after their raids, are most likely to bring in their loot. Many of the men at the sales barn were professional slavers, from other towns and cities, looking for bargains.
“Sold to Targo, of Ar!” announced the auctioneer. Manacles were then clapped on the blonde and she was dragged from the block.
I was angry, for I did not even know if Miss Henderson was to be sold, or if she had already been sold. If she had been sold she might even now, while I stood about, helplessly, be being transported from Victoria, a slave, anywhere. My fists were clenched. My palms were sweating.
The next two girls, brunettes, were sold to Lucilius, of Tyros. The next four slaves were purchased by a fellow named Publius, who was an agent for a Mintar, of Ar.
I waited, as the bidding grew more heated, and as more men entered the building. Five times the ready cage was emptied and filled, and emptied, as girls, freed of their shackles, were ordered to the block’s surface for their vending.
“Do none of these women interest you?” asked a man nearby.
“Many are lovely,” I said. Indeed, had I not been waiting desperately, miserably, for she whom I sought I might have been tempted to bid hotly on several of them. To own any one of them would have been a joy and a triumph. The man who has owned a woman or women, knows of what I speak. Perhaps even those who have never owned a woman can sense, dimly, what it might be like.
I know of no pleasure comparable to the pleasure of owning a woman fully. It is indescribably delicious; it is glorious; it fills one with joy and power; it exalts and fulfills the blood. It teaches a male, in the thunderous currency of intellect and emotion, what is the true meaning of manhood. Compared to it the gratifications of pretense and denial, the insistence on subverting one’s blood and virility in the name of a false manhood conditioned by a demented, antibiological society, are pallid indeed. Let those who can climb mountains climb them; let those who cannot climb them console themselves denying their existence.
“The brunette four sales ago,” said the man next to me, “was she not superb?”
“Yes,” I said. She had indeed been stunning. In this market, to her indignation, she had gone for only fourteen copper tarsks. She had been sold to an agent of Clark, of Thentis. The next brunette, in my opinion, had been even more stunning. She had gone for a mere fifteen copper tarsks. She had been sold to a Cleanthes of Teletus.
“Sold to Vart, of Port Kar!” called the auctioneer, and a redhead was taken from the platform.
“And here,” called the auctioneer, “we have one of the catches of Kliomenes, taken near Lara.”
He tore the sheet away from the girl on the block, throwing it to the side.
She wore only her sales collar with her sales disk, on which was written her lot number, wired to the steel.
“A cold, prissy little Earth slut,” called the auctioneer, “and yet one not without interest, as you can see.” He bent her back, his hand in her hair, exposing the bow of her beauty to the men.
There was a sound of pleasure from the crowd.
“She is already branded,” said the auctioneer, “but has served primarily as a display slave, and not a use slave.” He then turned her, still keeping his hand in her hair, so that those on his left might better see her. “Accordingly,” he said, “she is not yet fully broken to the collar.” There was laughter from the crowd. He then turned her so that those on his right might better see her. “In my opinion,” said he, “it is now time for this girl to learn the various uses to which a slave can be put.”
“Yes!” shouted more than one fellow. He then,
as she gasped, bent her back a bit more, turning her again toward her left, so that she was presented exquisitely to the men. “Does she not appear ready for taming and heating?” inquired the auctioneer.
“Yes,” shouted several men, “yes!” The girl trembled. She knew she might belong to any one of them.
“What am I bid?” called the auctioneer.
“Two copper tarsks,” called a man.
“Four!” cried another.
“Six!”
“Seven!”
“Nine!”
“Eleven!”
“This is an exquisite little slut!” called the auctioneer. He then released her hair. “Stand straight,” he ordered the girl. She did so. He walked about the platform, with the whip.
“Twelve!”
“Thirteen!”
“She was beautiful enough to be a display slave,” said the auctioneer.
“Fourteen!” was called out.
“Now you can have her for your own work and use slave!” pointed out the auctioneer.
“Fifteen!” I heard.
“Consider her, surrendered, squirming in your furs!” he said.
“Sixteen!” I heard.
“Do I hear only sixteen tarsks for this exquisite little bargain?” inquired the auctioneer, incredulously.
“Sixteen,” repeated the man.
The auctioneer spun to face the girl. “Kneel, and kiss the whip,” he ordered her.
Swiftly the girl, frightened, knelt before him. She took the coils of the whip in her small hands and, lowering her head, kissed them.
“On your feet,” barked the auctioneer. “I will have a fit price for you.”
The girl, terrified, sprang to her feet.
“Put her through her paces!” called a man. “Let us see what she can do!” called another.