Explorers of Gor (18 page)

The physician bent to examine her.

Shoka then retrieved the pole and extended it outward, to draw the blond-haired girl back to the rail.

She was very beautiful. Her eyes, briefly, met mine as Shoka lifted her over the rail. He placed her on her back, beside Sasi, her wrists and ankles, like those of Sasi, still tied. Her arms, like Sasi’s, elbows bent, were back and over her head.

“Oh!” she cried, handled as a slave girl.

Curious, the physician touched her again. She whimpered. squirming. “She’s a hot one,” said the physician.

“Yes,” said Ulafi.

The girl looked at the physician with horror, tears in her eyes. But he completed her examination, looking into her eyes, and examining the interior of her thighs, her belly, and the interior of her forearms, for marks.

Then the physician stood up. “They are clear,” he said. “The ship is clear. All may disembark.”

“Excellent,” said Ulafi.

The scribe noted the physician’s report in his papers and the physician, with a marking stick, initialed the entry.

“May I wish you good fortune in your business in Schendi,” said Ulafi.

“Yes, thank you, Captain,” I said. “My thanks to you, too, for a line voyage.”

He nodded. “Thanks, too,” said he, “for the use of your pretty little dark-haired slave for the prow.”

“It is nothing,” I said.

“I wish you well,” said he.

“I wish you well,” said I.

I bent to Sasi’s bonds, and freed her. Then I took a pair of slave bracelets from my pouch and braceleted her hands behind her back. I would have to find lodging.

“Put that one,” said Ulafi to a seaman, indicating the bound, blond-haired girl, “in sink and chain her to a ring on the wharf. We will not have her run away again, as she did in Port Kar.”

“Yes, Captain,” said the man.

I went and gathered up my sea bag, Sasi behind me braceleted, to my left.

I heard the blond-haired girl being locked in silk. She was then freed of the ropes on her.

She was pulled to her feet by the chain at her throat, that attached to the sink, collar. The sirik collar was close-fitting and would not, like a work collar, fit over the shipping collar. The shipping collar was thrust up her throat, under her chin, where it would be easy to check. The sink collar then had been locked about her throat below it. I did not think the girl would be let out of the shipping collar until she had been delivered into the hands of the slaver, Uchafu, who was to be her buyer. Ulafi, commendably, was taking no chances with the wench. I did not think, however, that she would be likely to attempt to escape again, anyway. She had now learned something of her slavery, and she had felt the whip. Too, surely she could remember the fed of the scimitar of discipline on her ankles at Port Kar, at the desk of the wharf praetor. At a word from Ulafi her feet would have been cut off. Mercifully she had been only whipped, thereafter being identified as what she was, a slave, by brand and collar. I did not think she would wish to lose her feet. I did not think she would attempt to escape again.

Shoka pulled her down the gangplank and, near the ship, with a length of chain and a heavy padlock, running the chain through the sink chain, fastened her to a ring.

She knelt there, on the hot boards.

She looked up at me, naked and chained.

For an instant I saw again, in her eyes, the secret slave of her. Then I saw her eyes try to deny the slave. She bit her lip, and looked down. “No, no,” she whispered to herself, in English.. “I am not a slave.”

“Are you going to sell me in Schendi?” asked Sasi.

“Perhaps.” I said. “I will, if I wish.”

“Yes, Master,” said Sasi.

The blond-haired girl’s head was down.

I supposed the secret slave knew well that her jailer was the blond-haired girl. But I did not think the blond-haired girl realized, or fully realized, that she herself was the slave she so cruelly suppressed.

The blond-haired girl then, timidly, lifted her eyes to mine.

I looked at her.

Gorean men, despite her will, would free that slave. The blond-haired girl would have no choice but to become her deepest, fullest and most ancient self. The lies of her false civilization cast aside, the veneers of her acculturation rent and discarded, being of no interest to Gorean men, who did not share them, the deepest and most primitive female animal in her would be liberated. She would be made to be a woman.

Frightened, the blond-haired girl quickly put down her head.

She trembled. The chains moved. She seemed small.

I continued to look upon her.

Yes, she would be made to be a woman, and in the fullest sense of the word, that of a love slave to strong men.

I turned to leave.

“Master!” she cried.

I turned about, to again face her.

“Do not go,” she said. “Please do not leave me!”

“I do not understand,” I said.

“Take me with you,” she begged.

“I do not understand,” I said.

“Please buy me,” she said. She looked up at me, tears in her eyes, lifting her chained hands to me. “Please, Please, Master, buy me!” she said.

“He already has a girl,” said Sasi, angrily.

“Be silent,” I said to Sasi.

“Yes, Master,” she said.

“Do you beg to be purchased?” I asked the blond-haired girl.

“Yes, Master,” she said.

“Only a slave begs to be purchased,” I said. It is regarded as an acknowledgment of their slavery, that they can be bought and sold.

“I am a slave,” she said.

“Yes,” I said, “but you do not yet really know it.” She looked at me.

“You have not yet begun to learn your collar,” I told her.

“Buy me,” she said. “Teach it to me.”

“You tempt me, lovely slut,” I said.

She looked up at me.

“Kiss my feet,” I told her.

She did so, in her chains, kneeling on the hot boards of the wharf at Schendi. Then again she looked up at me.

“Another will buy you,” I told her. Then I turned away from her.

“We must seek lodging,” I said to Sasi.

“Yes, Master,” she said.

I heard the girl behind us cry out in misery. And then she screamed, though we did not turn to regard her, in English, “I hate you! I hate you, Master! And I am not a slave! I am not a slave!”

But I remembered the feel of her lips and tongue, delicate, on my feet. The feel of the caress had been unmistakable. Tier lips and tongue had been those of a slave.

“I am not a slave!” she cried in English.

I thought the girl would be useful. She would lead me, inadvertently, to the geographer Shaba, explorer of Lake Ushindi, discoverer of Lake Ngao and the Ua river. She would lead me, too, not understanding it, to the Tahari ring.

It was that which I sought, and perhaps, too, the blood of Shaba, who had betrayed Priest-Kings.

There are many fine slave markets in Schendi, in particular, those of Ushanga, Mkufu, Utajiri, Dhahabu, Fedha, Marashi, Hariri, Kovu and Ngoma. The market of Uchafu, on the other hand, is not numbered among these.

One can pick up pot girls and low women there. It was thus appropriate, I suppose, that the blond-haired barbarian, ignorant and untrained, scarcely able to speak Gorean, little more than raw collar meat, should have been taken there. She would attract little attention.

“May I be of assistance to Master?” asked Uchafu, hobbling toward me, supporting himself on a knobbed stick.

“Perhaps, later,” I said. “I am browsing now.”

“Browse as you will, Master,” said Uchafu. “You will find that we have here the finest slaves in all Schendi.” He had lost several teeth and was blind in one eye. His robe was filthy, and stained with food and blood. A long knife, unsheathed, was thrust into his sash.

“Why is that girl blindfolded?” I asked, indicating a girl, kneeling with other girls, chained, under a low, palm-thatched platform.

“Why to keep her quiet, Master,” said Uchafu.

I nodded. It is a device often used by slavers.

Uchafu then hobbled away.

“Buy me, Master,” said a girl near me. I glanced at her, and then passed by, moving down the row.

It was muddy in the market, for it had rained yesterday afternoon and evening, after our arrival in Schendi. The air was steamy. One could smell the vegetation and jungles behind the port. Uchafu’s market was back of the merchant wharves, nearer the harbor mouth. It was on a canal, called the Fish canal, leading back from the harbor. It is adjacent, on the south, to a large market where river fish are peddled for consumption in Schendi. These are brought literally through the harbor by canoes, moving among the larger ships, from the fishing villages of the Nyoka and then delivered via the canal to the market. There are also a number of small shops in the vicinity. The official name of the canal is the Tangawizi canal, or Ginger canal, but it is generally called, because of the market, the Fish canal.

“Buy me, Master,” said another girl, as I passed her. She was brown-skinned and sweet-legged.

There were only, by my conjecture, at the time I was in the market of Uchafu, some two hundred and fifty girls there. Uchafu was not at his full stock at that time. He handled most of his own business but was assisted by four younger men, one of whom was his brother. In spite of the fact that he was not at full inventory he crowded his girls, leaving several of the small, open-sided, palm-thatched shelter, those about the outer wall, a low, boarded wall, empty.

Most of the girls were black, as would be expected from the area, but there were some ten or fifteen white girls there, and some two girls apparently of oriental or mixed extraction.

“Master,” said a red-haired girl, reaching forth her hand, timidly, not daring to touch me.

I looked at her.

Fearfully she drew hack her hand.

I moved farther down the row. Two black girls shrank back. I gathered they were new to their collars.

I then shifted my attention to another of the small shelters. They are some twenty feet long and five feet deep, and four feet high. Two heavy posts are sunk deeply into the ground at each end of each shelter. A chain runs between these posts. Each girl, on her left ankle, wean an ankle ring, with a loop of chain and a lock. By means of the loop of chain and lock she is attached to the central chain. Some of the girls also wore slave bracelets or other devices, fastening their hands before or behind their bodies. One girl, lying on her shoulder in the mud, was cruelly trussed, hand and foot, with binding fiber. Perhaps she had not been fully pleasing.

I crouched down beside a thick-ankled blond girl. I pulled her to me by the hair, and turned her head to one side. I examined her collar. The legend had once read ‘I am the girl of Kikombe’. The name ‘Kikombe’ now, however, for the most part, with a set of rough, zigzag lines, had been scratched out, and the name ‘Uchafu’, with a sharp tool, had been added. I smiled. Uchafu even used second-hand collars. The Kurii were clever. Surely one would not search for a valuable girl in such a market.

“Do you like her?” asked Uchafu, who had come up near to me again. He had kept a close eye on me. “I had her from Kikombe honestly,” he said.

“I do not doubt it,” I said. I gathered he thought mo possibly an agent tracing smuggled slaves.

It had not been for no reason that I had seemed to express interest in the thick-ankled blond.

“Do you like white girls?” asked Uchafu.

“Yes,” I said.

“They make superb slaves,” said Uchafu.

“Yes,” I said.

“This one is a beauty,” he said, indicating the girl whose collar I had just examined.

“Have you others?” I asked.

“Yes,” he said.

“Have you others with hair of this sort?’ I asked.

“Yes,” he said. But he looked at me, suddenly, warily.

I looked about, over the shelter near us to those at the far wall, which were empty. “You have empty shelters over there,” I said. “Why do you put so many girls together? Would it not be better to space them farther apart, for purposes of display?”

“It is easier to feed and clean them this way,” he said. There is less area to be covered.”

“I see,” I said.

“Besides,” he said, “later in the month I am expecting deliveries and I will then need that space.”

There were weeds and grass growing about the interior perimeter of the low board fence encircling the market. The fence was some four feet high. A small wooden hut, with a roof thatched with palm leaves, at one corner of the compound, served as house and office for Uchafu and, I suspect, dormitory for his assistants.

“You seem to have no male slaves,” I observed.

“They are now scarce in Schendi,” he said. “Bila Huruma, Ubar of Lake Ushindi, uses them for work on his great canal.”

“He intends to join Lakes Ushindi and Ngao, I have heard,” I said.

“It is a mad project,” said Uchafu, “but what can one expect of the barbarians of the interior?”

“It would open the Ua river to the sea,” I said.

“If it were successful,” said Uchafu. “But it will never be accomplished. Thousands of men have already died. They perish in the heat, they die in the sun, they are killed by hostile tribes, they are destroyed by insects, they are eaten by tharlarion. It is a mad and hopeless venture, costly in money and wasteful in human life.”

“It must be difficult to obtain so many male slaves,” I said.

“Most who work on the canal are not slaves,” said Uchafu. “Many are debtors or criminals. Many are simply common men, impressed into service, victims of work levies imposed on the villages. Indeed, only this year Bila Huruma has demanded quotas of men from Schendi herself.”

“These have, of course, been refused,” I said.

“We have strengthened our defenses,” said Uchafu, “reinforcing the palisaded walls which shield Schendi from the interior, but we must not delude ourselves. Those walls were built to keep back animals and bands of brigands, not an army of thousands of men. We are not an armed city, not a fortress, not a land power. We do not even have a navy. We are only a merchant port.”

“You have, of course, nonetheless refused the request of Bila Huruma for men,” I said.