Conspirators of Gor (20 page)

“Begin!” called a man.

“Slaves,” called the auctioneer, “come to the bars, smile, press against them, reach out to the noble masters. Good. Can you not see, noble Masters, how ready they are, how they hope to be well purchased?”

I, the girl from Tabor, and the kneeling blonde, shaking with sobs, the former Lady Persinna, of the Merchants, remained at the back of the cell.

I saw the slaver’s man looking at us, from the level of the street. I shuddered. The girl from Tabor saw him, too. She then hurried to the bars, to join the other slaves. I saw her straighten her body, and lift her chin. She was beautiful.

“You may plead, needful beauties, to be purchased,” the auctioneer informed the girls.

“Buy me, Master,” they called to the men.

I saw the dark blonde extending both her hands through the bars, and call out, piteously, to a handsome fellow in the front row, “Buy me, Master!” He smiled. “I am prettier, Master!” called out one of the brunettes. “No, I, I, buy me, Master!” called out the dark blonde. I supposed it was pleasant to be a man, to whom women would beg to belong. I wondered what it would be, to be owned by him. One of my cellmates, I supposed, might learn. Perhaps I would learn! Other girls at the bars seemed to present themselves to one fellow or another. Most, I assumed, would fail to be purchased by the particular master of their choice. They would be purchased by whoever bid the most for them.

It is so with slaves.

It would be so with me.

“Enough!” called the auctioneer, suddenly, sharply. “Be silent. Go back in the cell, away from the bars! Huddle there, together, in the back, away from the bars. As you can, crowd together, and try to hide! Crowd together! Do not speak!”

Frightened, the girls did as they were told. All of us now were together, standing, except for the former Lady Persinna, who still knelt, perhaps unable to rise, toward the back of the cell, away from the bars.

We could not be seen so well now, for the bars, and the distance.

I supposed there was an order to the sales.

The slaver’s man entered the cell, took one of the brunettes by the wrist, and drew her from the cell, through the short passage, and led her to the block, where she stood, small, seeming isolated, much alone, though the auctioneer was near, on the red carpet.

The slaver’s man, he stripped to the waist, did not bother to close the gate, but none of us essayed the portal. We huddled together, at the back of the cell. One obeys the masters. Too, it would be unutterably foolish, insanity, to try to flee. We were tunicked, sheeted, and marked. What would one do? Where would one go? Where would one run? There is no escape for the Gorean slave girl, and I now well knew myself such.

“A choice item,” the auctioneer was saying. He extolled her, the brunette, as he turned her about. Shortly, he removed the sheet which she had clutched about her, continuing to exhibit her. Shortly thereafter he gracefully removed the wrap-around tunic, again turning her about.

She is merchandise, I thought.

It is said that only a fool buys a woman clothed.

He then put her to all fours on the red carpet.

“See her, noble Masters,” said the auctioneer. “Would you not like her crawling to your feet, begging not to be whipped?”

He then began to solicit bids.

The dark blonde was next taken by the wrist and drawn to the block. The fellow she had tried to interest did not bid on her. A fat fellow purchased her. I saw her hold forth her wrists and slave bracelets were clapped on them. She then followed her new master. She looked over her shoulder at the fellow she had hoped would buy her, but he did not notice her. His attention was again on the block. I did not feel sorry for her, as she had been unpleasant to me earlier, in the cell.

The girl from Tabor was next brought to the block, and, as the others, exhibited. At one point, she put her hands behind the back of her head, and bent backward. This well exhibited her figure, which was lovely. Bids increased. She would be, doubtless, a good buy. How dare she so display herself, I thought. But, if she were not sold, I thought, she would be whipped. Slavers are seldom lenient with their goods. They are not out to coddle them, but to make coin on them. What if I were not sold? I did not wish to be bound, and whipped. To my right, the Lady Persinna, still kneeling, head down, was weeping, her head again in her hands. I, too, suddenly felt like crying. I looked about, wildly, at the open gate, then through the bars, to the street outside, to the men, intent upon the object for sale. I considered running. Then I moved back, even further. I felt the cement wall of the back of the cage against my back. I would remain where I was. Somehow, the gate open, I felt a thousand times more helpless than before.

I did not see to whom the girl from Tabor went.

The auctioneer, in his introduction of the item which was the girl from Tabor, had mentioned her origin on Tabor, and inquired if there might be any from Tabor present. Apparently there were none. The auctioneer then remarked that her slavery then would doubtless be far easier. Laughter had greeted this remark. I liked the girl from Tabor. She had spoken well to me, earlier in the cell, despite the fact that I was a “barbarian,” and, too, we were both, so to speak, far from home.

The slaver’s man again entered the cell, and looked about. I was terrified that it would be my wrist which he would seize, in his large, manacle-like hand. But he took another brunette.

She brought less than the girl from Tabor.

Perhaps, I thought, a girl from the islands, with her accent, would have an exotic flavor at a fellow’s slave ring.

The brunette was purchased, I gathered, for a restaurant, or tavern, of some sort. “May she serve her goblets well, and nicely grace the chains of your alcoves,” had said the auctioneer to her buyer, while his man led her down the steps to the street, into his keeping.

Next, to her misery, the Lady Persinna was seized and drawn to the block. She was clutching the short sheet closely about her, and was shrieking, and sobbing. “I cannot be sold!” she cried. “I am a free woman, a free woman!”

“What is it that she is saying?” asked the auctioneer.

“I am free,” she wept. “I am free!”

“Ah!” said the auctioneer. “Can it be that she is free?”

“Yes,” she cried. “Yes!”

The slaver’s man then, holding her by the upper left arm with his right hand faced her left side to the crowd.

“No!” she cried.

He then, with his left hand, drew up the sheet, and the hem of her tunic, to the waist.

There was much laughter.

“It seems we have here only another slave,” said the auctioneer.

The former Lady Persinna fell to her knees before the auctioneer, holding the sheet closely about her. “Do not sell me!” she cried.

“‘Do not sell me’ what?” inquired the auctioneer.

She looked stricken, before him. “Do not sell me—Master,” she said.

There was much laughter.

The slaver’s man pulled her to her feet. She clutched the sheet closely about her. It seemed she could hardly stand.

The auctioneer surveyed the crowd.

“What am I offered for this slave?” he asked.

“A tarsk-bit!” called a man.

“Surely more!” laughed the auctioneer. “Surely the sheet does not much hide the legs of this slave!”

She threw back her head, sobbing.

The auctioneer then gestured, annoyed, to his man, who seized the former Lady Persinna by the hair, to hold her in place, and then he, carefully, measuredly, cuffed her, twice, once snapping her head to the right, and then to the left.

“Be silent!” said the auctioneer.

“Yes, Master!” she said.

The slaver’s man then released her, and stepped back.

“We have an unusual slave here,” said the auctioneer. “This slut was once the Lady Persinna, of the high Merchants, housed even in Four Towers. You know her well for her betrayal of the Home Stone, for her profiteering, for her collaboration with the hated invaders. Recall the shortages, the high costs, the adulterated goods!”

Angry murmurs seethed in the small crowd.

Given the seeming importance of the former Lady Persinna I did not understand how it was that she was being vended in such a market.

Was it, in spite of its appearance, a high market?

Perhaps, I thought, for how could one such as I be sold in any but a high market? Surely I was much too beautiful to be sold in any but a high market. I was now muchly pleased that I had not complained about the market, earlier.

“Behold her,” said the auctioneer.

The former Lady Persinna stood, miserable, small, a slave, the sheet clutched about her.

Then, a moment later, looking about myself, at the buyers, the street, the local buildings, the crowded shops across the way, I realized how foolish were my conjectures. In no way could this barred cell and that circular cement platform be thought a high market. We might almost as well have been chained on a slave shelf, where buyers might have examined our teeth, felt our limbs for firmness, and such.

How then, I wondered, could it be that the former Lady Persinna was even now on that simple cement platform, before buyers?

“You know her sycophancy,” said the auctioneer, “her privileges, her position in the court of the hated Talena, false Ubara! You know the favors she received, the contracts accorded her by Cos and Tyros.”

“Yes,” said more than one man.

“She was on the proscription lists,” said the auctioneer, “but she has been saved for your pleasure.”

The girl held the sheet tightly about her.

The auctioneer lifted the hair of the slave, displaying it.

“Golden hair,” he said, “sparkling as ripe Sa-Tarna.”

“Shave her head!” called a man.

“Consider it as a sheet of pleasure, which might be spread about your body,” said the auctioneer, “or its value as a bond, fastening her wrists behind the back of her neck.”

“Cut it off,” said a fellow. “Use it for catapult cordage, that she may be good for something.”

“Throw her to leech plants!” called a man.

“Feed her to sleen!” cried another.

I knew nothing, at the time, of leech plants, and I had not yet beheld a sleen.

“Come now, noble Masters,” said the auctioneer, “regard her ankles, her calves, her small hands, so tight on the sheet, the exquisite delicacy of her features.”

The men were silent.

“What are we offered for this traitress?” called the auctioneer.

“Let us see her!” called a man.

The sheet was whipped away from the slave, half turning her about.

Then she was turned before the crowd.

She was praised, as one might praise an animal. Then I realized that, as a slave, she was an animal. And I realized that I, too, was now an animal.

This thrilled me, that I should now be no more than an animal.

The men cried out with pleasure, at the removal of the wrap-around tunic. Now, it seemed, there was no more talk of leech plants, of sleen, or such. What they saw now, it seemed, was a slave.

The former Lady Persinna was put to all fours on the red carpet, while the bids were forthcoming.

A little later, she cried out, in misery, and terror, from all fours, not permitted to rise. “No, no! Not to him! Not to him! Do not sell me to him! Please! Please! Sell me to anyone, but not to him!”

But it was to that fellow that she was sold.

He came to the edge of the platform. “Perhaps you remember me,” he said.

She would have scrambled back, on the carpet, but it was too late. The leash had been snapped on her neck.

I saw her being led away.

I now suspected that the fellow who had bought her, despite the shabbiness of his nondescript robes, had come prepared, in such a market, in such a district, to outbid all likely competition. Apparently he had realized she would be sold in this market on this day. I supposed that was not common knowledge. It seemed probable to me that this matter had been arranged, perhaps even with the collusion of a praetor, if not the Ubar himself. Perhaps the fellow had requested, or been granted, such a favor, that he would purchase the former Lady Persinna, to her humiliation, in a low market, for a handful of coins. Indeed, I wondered if the coins, even, were his. Perhaps it amused someone, perhaps an important personage, if the former Lady Persinna should find herself in the collar of that fellow, or someone like him.

Thus, I conjectured a plausible explanation for the apparent anomaly of one such as the former Lady Persinna, of the Merchants, of Four Towers, which, I gathered, must be an exclusive residence, or an exclusive residential area, being vended in such a market. It was to demean and humiliate her. Let her learn quickly, and well, that she was now only a slave.

As the slaves had been sold, even the former Lady Persinna, much in the street had gone on as it had before the Tenth Ahn. Many men, and women, had come and gone, and shopped, and bargained, without attending to, or, apparently, even noticing, what was going on on our side of the street. A sale of slaves, particularly in a low market, was a familiar, commonplace thing, I gathered, worthy of no particular attention. A lad, drawing a cart, had stopped for a time, to look on, but had then gone ahead.