Assassin of Gor (22 page)

This race was a short one, only five pasangs in length, and one of the nonfaction birds won, much to the displeasure of the crowd, saving those who had dared to accept the long odds on such a bird.

One man near me had apparently been one of the lucky few for he was leaping up and down screaming with delight. Then, stumbling, and brushing through spectators, few of whom shared his pleasure, he was making his way down to the tables of the odds Merchants.

I noticed that Minus Tentius Hinrabius now chose to leave the races. He did so. Irritation in his every movement, followed by his guards, Saphronicus, the Captain of the guards, and the rest of his retinue. To my surprise hardly anyone in the stands even noted his going.

There were various races to follow but the afternoon sun was now below the roof of the central cylinder in the distance and I decided to leave the races.

As I did so I passed several chained slaves girls kneeling on a stone tier. They were doubtless girls in training, and reasonably well advanced in training. They had been brought to see the races, that they might be pleased and stimulated, that they might return to their training refreshed and recreated. They were clearly enjoying themselves, and some were making bets, the stakes being pleasure beads from the contents of the jewelry and cosmetic box allotted to each, usually kept in her cell. They were fastened together wrist to wrist by slave bracelets. At each end of the line there was a guard. The slaves wore light, hooded cloaks, the length of which, when they stood, would fall slightly above the hem of their brief slave livery. The garments had rather large sleeves and fastened with a cord under the chin. It protected them from the sun to some extent but even more from the glances of the curious. Some of the girls, judging by the stripes on the hoods and cloaks were White Silk, and others Red Silk. The White Silk Girls, of course, having been released from the house, would have been placed in locked, iron belts. The girls were neither of the House of Cernus nor of Portus, but of one of the several lesser houses on the Street of Brands.

I heard the judge's bar ring twice, informing the crowd that the next race would begin in ten Ehn.

I rose from my seat and began to make my way to the exit. Some of the spectators looked at me with ill-concealed reproach, even something amounting to disdain. The racing fan of Ar, commonly remains to the last race, and sometimes even later, discussing the races and commenting on how he would have flown such and such a race better than the bird's rider. I did not even wear a faction patch.

It was my intention to relax at the Capacian Baths, have a leisurely supper at some Paga tavern and then return to the House of Cernus. There was a little wench named Nela, usually in the Pool of Blue Flowers, whom I enjoyed sporting with. By the time I returned to the House of Cernus, Elizabeth would have finished her slave porridge and be in the compartment, and I would hear about her day, and she would hear about mine, or most of it. When she was permitted, later in her training, to leave the house more often, I was eager to take her to the races and the baths, though perhaps not to the Pool of Blue Flowers.

It was now some twenty days after the girls had been brought in from the Voltai. Yet Elizabeth, and the two others, Virginia and Phyllis, had only been in training for five days. This had to do with certain decisions of Flaminius and Ho-Tu, and the two girls Virginia and Phyllis. I myself had been there that night that both, interrogated in their cages, had agreed to train as slave girls. I would have expected their training to have begun immediately. But it had not.

For about fifteen days Virginia and Phyllis, while the other captive Earth girls had been removed to an iron pen, remained in the tiny cement, iron-gated cages, so constructed than the inmate cannot at any one time fully stretch her body; over a period of time this builds up a considerable amount of body pain; and Phyllis, on the instructions of Flaminius, was further tormented in being braceleted to the bars, as she had been the first night, for several Ahn a day, being fed her gruel by hand, taking her water from a tin bottle thrust between her lips.

At last even Phyllis had asked again and again, irrationally, the guard not even understanding English, if they were truly to be trained. This question, insistently and irrationally pressed, received no answer. The guard, under instructions, did not even address a word in Gorean to them. In so far as was possible he ignored them. They were fed and watered as animals, which in Gorean eyes, being slaves, they were. Flaminius would not visit them.

For days they remained in the cages, cramped and miserable, alone, neglected, apparently overlooked, forgotten. They came to look eagerly for the sound of the bolt on the door. At last Flaminius visited them, informing them that they were not to be trained, and left. Both at this point had become hysterical. The next day Flaminius reentered the chamber, but apparently only to pick up some records which he had left behind the day before. Piteously, hysterically, they had cried out to him, begging to be taken from the cages, begging to be trained. Flaminius, apparently moved by their entreaties, told them he would speak to Cernus, master of the house, and to Ho-Tu, Master Keeper. He did not return until late the next day when the girls, with tears of relief, heard that Cernus, who was moved to kindness, would permit them an opportunity to train; they were sternly warned, however, that if their training did not proceed well, they would be promptly returned to the kennels. Flaminius then accepted their tearful gratitude for his intercession of their behalf.

Since Elizabeth was to be the lead girl in the set she was summoned to the kennel chamber when Virginia and Phyllis were to be released. I accompanied her. When the small iron gates were raised, the guard with a whip standing over them, Virginia and Phyllis crawled painfully out onto the iron walkway. They could not stand. The guard braceleted one of Phyllis' wrists to the rail and then snapped bracelets on Virginia, confining her wrists behind her back; he carried Virginia down to the main level and set her on her knees there, before Flaminius and Ho-Tu; Elizabeth and I were in the background; then the guard went back up to the walkway, freed Phyllis only to bracelet her hands behind her back, as he had done with Virginia, and then he carried her, too, down the iron stairs and placed her beside Virginia. He shoved the heads of both to the stones of the floor.

"Is the iron ready?" asked Ho-Tu of the guard, and the man nodded.

At a signal from Ho-Tu the guard carried Virginia to the branding rack and placed her in the rack, spinning the lever that locked her thigh in place. She said nothing but stood there, wrists braceleted behind her back, locked in place, watching the approach of the iron, observing the graceful, white-hot character at the iron's termination; she screamed uncontrollably when the iron marked her, firmly, decisively for about three Ihn; and then she sobbed, beside herself, while the guard spun the lever releasing her; he lifted her from the rack and put her on the stones at the feet of Ho-Tu and Flaminius; Phyllis' eyes were wild with fear, but she, like Virginia, did not so much as whimper as the guard lifted her, carried her to the rack and locked her in place.

"We still do hand branding," said Ho-Tu to me. "Mechanical devices brand too uniformly. Buyers like a hand-branded girl. Besides it is better for a female slave to be branded by a man; it makes them better slaves. The rack, however, is a useful device, preventing a blurred brand." He indicated the guard. "Strius," said he, "has one of the finest irons in Ar. His work is almost always exact and clean."

Phyllis Robertson threw back her head and screamed helplessly, and then she, too, began to sob, trembling, when the guard, Strius, released her from the rack and put her with Virginia.

Both girls were weeping.

Flaminius, gently, stretched out their legs, and rubbed them. I'm sure, in the pain of branding, they scarcely felt the pain which might be attendant on his massage, trying to restore some feeling and strength to their aching limbs.

I heard a woman moving close to me, heard the sound of slave bells.

I looked to one side and was startled. Watching us was a woman in Pleasure Silk, of remarkable beauty, yet with a certain subtle hardness and contempt about her. She wore a yellow collar, that of the House of Cernus, and yellow Pleasure Silk. The slave bells, a double row, were locked on her left ankle. About her throat there hung a slave whistle. From her right hand, looped about the wrist, there dangled a slave goad. She was fairly complected but had extremely dark hair and dark eyes, very red lips; the movement of her exquisite body was a torment to observe; she looked at me with a slight smile, regarding the black of the tunic, the mark of the dagger; her lips were full and magnificently turned, probably a characteristic bred into her; I had no doubt this black-haired, cruelly beautiful woman was a bred Passion Slave. She was one of the most rawly sensuous creatures on which I had ever looked.

"I am Sura," she said, looking at me, "I teach girls to give pleasure to men."

"These are the three," said Ho-Tu, indicating the two branded girls, and Elizabeth.

Flaminius rose to his feet, leaving the two girls lying on the stones, sobbing.

"Kneel," said Sura to the girls, in Gorean.

"Kneel," said Flaminius to them, in English.

The two girls, freshly branded, tears in their eyes, struggled to their knees.

Sura walked around them, and then she regarded Elizabeth. "Take off your clothes," she said.

Elizabeth did so, drawing at the loop on the left shoulder of her garment.

"Join them," ordered Sura, and Elizabeth went to kneel between Virginia and Phyllis.

"Bracelet her," said Sura, and the guard snapped slave bracelets on Elizabeth, confining her hands behind her back, like the other girls.

"You are lead girl?" asked Sura of Elizabeth.

"Yes," said Elizabeth.

Sura's finger flicked the slave goad on. She rotated the dial. The tip began to glow, a bright yellow.

"Yes, Mistress," said Elizabeth.

"You are barbarian?" asked Sura.

"Yes, Mistress," said Elizabeth.

Sura spat on the stones before Elizabeth.

"They are all barbarians," said Ho-Tu.

Sura turned about and looked at him with disgust. "How does Cernus expect me to train barbarians?" she asked.

Ho-Tu shrugged.

"Do what you can," said Flaminius. "These are intelligent slaves. They all have promise."

"You know nothing of such matters," said Sura.

Flaminius looked down, angry.

Sura walked over to the girls, lifted Virginia's head and looked into her eyes, and then stepped back. "Her face is too thin," she said, "and there are blemishes, and she is too thin, too thin."

Ho-Tu shrugged.

Sura looked at Elizabeth. "This one," she said, "was Tuchuk. She will know nothing except the care of bosk and the cleaning of leather."

Elizabeth, wisely, refrained from response.

"Now this one," said Sura, examining Phyllis, "has a slave's body, but how does she move? I have seen these barbarians. They cannot even stand straight. They cannot even walk."

"Do what you can," said Flaminius.

"It is hopeless," said Sura, stepping back to us. "Nothing can be done for them. Sell them off a minor block and be done with it. They are kettle girls, only that." Sura dialed the slave goad down, and then switched it off.

"Sura," said Flaminius.

"Kettle girls," snapped Sura.

Ho-Tu shook his head. "Sura is right," he said, rather too agreeably. "They are only kettle girls."

"But," protested Flaminius.

"Kettle girls," insisted Ho-Tu.

Sura laughed in triumph.

"No one could do anything with such barbarians," said Ho-Tu to Flaminius. "Not even Sura."

Something about the back of Sura's neck informed me she had noted what Ho-Tu had said and hadn't cared for the sound of it.

I saw Ho-Tu grimace at Flaminius.

A smile broke out on the Physician's face. "You're right," he said, "no one could do anything with such barbarians. They could not be trained by anyone, except perhaps Tethrite of the House of Portus."

"I had forgotten about her," said Ho-Tu.

"Tethrite is an ignorant she-tharlarion," said Sura irritably.

"She is the best trainer in Ar," said Ho-Tu.

"I, Sura, am the best trainer in Ar," said the girl, not pleasantly.

"Of course," said Ho-Tu to Sura.

"Besides," said Flaminius to Ho-Tu, "even Tethrite of the House of Portus could not train such barbarians."

Sura was now inspecting the girls more closely. She had pushed one thumb under Virginia's head. "Do not be frightened, little bird," said Sura soothingly in Gorean to Virginia. Sura removed her thumb and Virginia kept her fine head on its delicate neck high. "Some men might like a thin, pocked face," said Sura. "And her eyes, the gray, that is very good." Sura looked at Elizabeth. "You are probably the stupid one," she said.

"I scarcely think so," said Elizabeth, adding acidly, "Mistress."

"Good," said Sura to herself, "good."

"And you," she said to Phyllis, "you with the body of a Passion Slave, what of you?" Sura then took the slave goad, which was off, and moved it along the left side of Phyllis' body, touching her with the cold metal. Instinctively, even in her pain from the branding and with her aching limbs, Phyllis made a small noise and pulled away from the cold metal. The movement of her shoulders and belly was noted by Sura. She stood up, and again the slave goad dangled from her right wrist.