by John Norman
"Make way!" we heard. "Make way!" There was then the thudding of the clawed pads of kaiila, several of them, almost upon us. "Ho! Ho!" called their drovers, riding behind them, swirling their coiled rawhide ropes in the air. I and the others backed against the wall of the compound of Ram Seibar. The kaiila, perhaps a hundred to a hundred and fifty of them, thundered past. I did not think such beasts should be run through the streets, but it sometimes pleases their drovers to do so. It had happened more than once since I had been in Kailiauk. The kaiila were presumably from the northern ranches and would be sold in Kailiauk, and in the towns to the south.
"It is needless for that to be done in that fashion," said a fellow near me. "There are shorter routes to the corrals and the wired pastures."
"Individuals are sometimes injured," said another man.
"The tavern girls live in terror of them," said another fellow.
I looked down at the girl in my arms. I saw that what he had said was true. This pleased me. It was fitting that slave girls lived in terror of free men.
"They do not come that often to Kailiauk," said a fellow, cheerfully.
"When they come," said another, "it is with a thirst for paga and the wenches of the taverns."
"Who can blame them?" said another.
The kaiila ranches, I supposed, were remote, desolate places. Land which is suitable for farming, and in proximity to towns, is seldom, along the perimeter, put to the uses of grazing.
"They are generally good fellows," said another man.
"They spend their money freely," added another.
"That is a point in their favor," said another.
"A point in our favor," said another.
"Some are dangerous and cruel," said another man.
"Let us hope there will be no killings," said another.
Killings among such men, hot-tempered and aflame with paga, I supposed might occur not infrequently. Too often, I suspected, a suspicion of cheating at stones or disks, or a dispute over a slave, might lead to the flash of steel, the sudden movement of a knife.
"You saved me, Master," said the girl, holding to me.
"Perhaps to some extent," I said, "I have protected the investment of your master." It is well to help a slave keep clearly in mind that she is only an article of property.
"He had me cheaply," she smiled.
"Perhaps I should not have bothered," I said.
"But I am worth more now," she said.
"Oh?" I said.
"Return with me to the tavern of Randolph," she said. "I will show you." She then pressed her body against me, closely and lasciviously, and helplessly, in the manner of the female slave, that of the woman who knows herself completely subject to the will of men. She then put her arms about my neck and, standing on her toes, lifting her lips to mine, kissed me. I then, by the arms, held her from me.
"You kiss well, Slave," I told her.
"Thank you, Master," she said.
"Is it true that you are a barbarian?" I asked.
"Yes, Master," she said. "I was sold, even, from the house of Ram Seibar."
"When?" I asked.
"Eighteen months ago," she said.
"You are now no stranger to your collar," I said. The kiss of a slave girl is unmistakable.
"No, Master," she said.
"The central street seemed busy tonight," I said. "I find it hard to believe that you have been sent forth to solicit business, the evening being such as it is, for the tavern of Randolph."
She looked at me, suddenly, frightened.
The fellow on the platform, at that time, began again to address the crowd. "Barbarians! Barbarians for sale!" he called. "Enter now. The sales begin in a few Ehn. Buy at the house of Ram Seibar! Barbarians for sale, cheap and pretty!"
"Solicit elsewhere," I told her.
"Please, Master," she said.
"If you do not wish to use her," said a fellow standing nearby, "do you mind my taking her?"
"Of course not," I said.
"Lead me to the tavern of Randolph," said the man to the girl.
"Master!" said the girl to me.
"Do you dawdle to obey, Slave?" inquired the man.
"No, Master," she cried, turning white, "no!"
"Precede me," he said.
"Yes, Master," she said.
"As a slave girl," he said.
"Yes, Master!" she said. With a sob she began to precede him, and as a slave girl.
"Barbarians for sale! Barbarians for sale, cheap and pretty!" called the fellow on the platform.
I then went through the gate and entered the compound of Ram Seibar.
8
Grunt
I turned my attention from the apparently lovely young woman, though she was fully clothed, who was strung up by the wrists near the central block. Her ankles had also been crossed and bound, a slaver's trick to accentuate the sweet curvatures of her hips and legs. A thong also ran from over the bonds on her ankles to an iron ring a few inches below her feet. This tends to prevent undue movement on the rope.
A distinction must be drawn between the side blocks and the central, or main, block, in a vending area. I shall describe the situation, specifically, as it exists in the sales barn of Ram Seibar. It is not untypical of the arrangements in many such places, particularly in outlying areas. To be sure, there is, it seems, from market to market, and from city to city, an almost infinite variety of ways in which women may be, and are, displayed and sold. This is not surprising since the institution of female slavery, on Gor, is both extremely successful and quite ancient.
In the central hall of the sales barn of Ram Seibar, which is open to the public, there are twenty-one blocks. Twenty of these are subsidiary blocks, or side blocks. These occur, aligned, ten to a side, along the walls, to the left and right, as one enters. They are spaced rather evenly, in order not to suggest distinctions among them. Too, they are placed a few feet out from the walls. At one's convenience, then, one may walk entirely about them. They are about a yard high and five feet in diameter. In the center of each there is an iron ring. The central block, which must be ascended by stairs, lies at the far end of the hall as one enters, opposite the door. It is about seven or eight feet in height and some twenty feet in diameter. Girls are seldom auctioned from the side blocks. Occasionally fixed prices are set on them. If this is the case the price is usually written on their body, either with a grease pencil or a lipstick. Usually, however, of course, they find themselves being bargained for. The girl usually hopes that her master will pay enough for her to convince him that she is of at least minimal value, and will not pay so much that he will be angry with the merchant, for in such a case he is almost certain to take his dissatisfaction out on her lovely hide. "Side-block girl," in the argot of the slave girl, like "pot girl" and "kettle-and-mat girl," is a term of disparagement. It must be admitted there is more prestige in being auctioned from a major, or central, block than there is in being casually purchased from a side block. One might as well be sold off a slaver's public shelf, in a city, or out of a cage, or kneeling in the mud outside a village, from a "slaver's necklace." To be sure, a girl who is once sold off a side block may, in time, her femininity blossoming under the discipline of the whip and the harsh tutelage of masters, become a treasure, a slave so beautiful and desirable that men will pay fortunes to have her at their feet.
I wandered over to the left wall to look at some of the side blocks.
"I shall take this one," I heard a fellow say, and so simply was the girl sold. She was one of the few girls on whom Ram Seibar had set a fixed price. It was written on her back in lipstick, forty copper tarsks. She was one of the few who had been freshly branded. Her wrists were crossed and bound before her, in cruel loops of rawhide, and, by a tight loop encircling her body, cutting into her flesh, held tightly before her. This was to prevent her from tearing at the brand. Her cheeks were stained with tears. She, like the other girls on the side blocks, was fastened on her block. Uniformly they w
ore collars and chains, the chains some five feet in length and attached to the block rings. She saw money change hands. She knew she had been sold. She looked at her master, and shuddered. She saw that he was handsome.
When one girl was sold from a block a new one was put in her place.
"How can you sell an unbranded woman?" asked a fellow of a slaver's man, indicating a freckled, fairly complexioned, red-haired barbarian kneeling frightened on a nearby block, the palms of her hands down on the wood. The black iron of her collar, and the chain, contrasted nicely with the lightness and texture of her skin.
"Is she worth fifty tarsks to you?" asked the slaver's man.
"Yes," said the fellow, slowly.
Immediately the slaver's man removed a long piece of rawhide, about four feet in length, from his belt. He took the girl's hands behind her, and, crossing them, with one end of the rawhide, fastened them tightly together. He then looped the rawhide about her belly, jerked it tight, and tied it to her bound wrists. The girl looked behind herself, frightened, her hands fastened closely at the small of her back. With a key he opened the girl's collar and placed it, with its chain, on the block. He then seized the girl by the arms and slid her from the block, into the waiting arms of an attendant. "Fifty tarsks for this freckled, little she-tarsk," he said. "This will be the buyer," he said, indicating the fellow who had expressed an interest in the girl. The attendant nodded and, throwing the girl over his shoulder, left.
"Pick her up in ten Ehn, at the front entrance," said the slaver's man to the prospective buyer. "She will be branded."
The man nodded, and turned away.
I smiled to myself at the artifice involved in this transaction. The sale, technically, would not take place until after the young woman was branded. I watched her being carried out through a side entrance. I wondered if she knew she were being carried to the iron. This lot of barbarians, which I guessed as being in the neighborhood of seventy or eighty girls, had been, as nearly as I could determine, delivered only last night or this morning. Even now the majority of them had not been marked. This was a function, of course, of the brief amount of time they had been in the possession of Ram Seibar. It takes time to bring an iron to branding heat and the iron, of course, its head sinking and searing, burning, into the girl's flesh, marking her, loses heat rapidly. A given iron, accordingly, must be reheated before being reapplied. This situation is further complicated by the fact that the iron, normally, is cleaned following each application, a procedure which further reduces its heat. The cleaning is important for the precision and clarity of the next marking. Thus, in effect, each girl is marked with a new, fresh iron.
The most common brand site in a Gorean slave girl is the outer side of the left thigh, closely beneath the hip. In this brand site the identificatory mark is thus placed high enough to be covered by the brief cloth of a common slave tunic and is available for convenient and immediate inspection if the tunic is lifted. The time it takes to brand several women can be reduced by the common expedient of heating several irons, but most iron masters will not work with more than two or three irons at a given time. Similarly, in a given house, normally only one fellow, at a time, attends to the branding. The rapidity with which the girls were being placed on sale, incidentally, is not unusual at the perimeter. This is, I think, in part a response to buyer pressure and, in part, the result of an unwillingness on the part of most perimeter slavers to devote time, or much time, to such niceties as diet, exercise and training. They reason, I suppose, that the master can manage, feed and train the girl, once he owns her, according to his own pleasures.
"I shall take this one," said a short, stocky, broad-shouldered fellow, in a wide-brimmed hat. "She has strong legs. Have her branded and put with the others."
The slaver's man nodded. They did not even discuss price. I gathered that a limited-lot price must have been agreed upon earlier, perhaps with Ram Seibar himself. The slaver's man did not seem hesitant to deal with him. I gathered he was well known in the area. He had bought more than one girl. Though the girls he purchased were comely, he did not seem, particularly, to be interested in that. He seemed to be buying them for some other reason.
As one girl, a branded one, was sold from a block down the way another girl, a blonde, was brought forward and flung on her hands and knees on the vacated block. A slaver's man then locked the collar on her, with its chain, running to the block ring. She looked about herself, frightened. A fellow reached forth to touch her thigh. She struck at his hand and scrambled back. "Don't! Don't!" she cried, in English. Almost instantly a slaver's man, a whip raised, was upon her. The men about the block stepped back, watching, as she, on her side, and twisting, writhed under her lashing. The slaver's man then folded back the blades of the whip, under their clip, and hooked the whip, by its butt ring, on his belt. He then knelt her on the block, posing her. When the fellow again reached forth to touch her she did not resist. She had learned that she was the sort of woman whom men might touch when and as they pleased.
She contrasted interestingly with another girl, an auburn-haired girl, on the next block. The auburn-haired girl, cooperatingly and without the least resistance, assumed various postures and attitudes, following the indications of the various men about her block. She even permitted herself, without the least resistance, to be posed, and by hand, for their interest. She knelt now on the block, back on her heels, her knees spread, her back straight, her head back, her hands behind the back of her head. I had little doubt but what the situation of both of these girls would become even more clear to them once they were branded.
"Noble Sirs!" called a voice, that of the fellow in the soiled blue-and-yellow shirt who had, earlier, been advertising the sale outside the compound. "Noble Sirs," he called. "We are ready for the final auction of the evening!"
This announcement was greeted with a murmur of interest and the men in the hall began to move toward the front of the room, to the vicinity of the central block. It was near the central block that the fully clothed, apparently lovely young woman was strung up by the wrists. She, it seemed, had been saved for last. During the course of the evening, from time to time, at irregular intervals, some fifteen or sixteen girls had been offered, in open bidding, to the crowd. Some of these, at least initially, had been clothed, though often in little other than panties and a brassiere. I had stayed to see this woman sold for I was curious to see if she was as beautiful as the delicate lineaments of her face suggested. She was a fair-skinned, slender, willowy girl. She appeared to be sweetly breasted, with a small waist and lovely, flaring hips, doubtless nestling a luscious love cradle. She had small wrists and ankles. They would look well in shackles. I saw that her eyes, when she opened them, in pain and terror, to look out on the crowd, were blue. Her hair was red, and bound back, rather severely, with a ribbon. She squirmed a moment in the bonds, and then hung still, near the central block. Her body, from what I could see of it, and judge of it, showed promise. It might prove adequate, I speculated, even for that of a pleasure slave.
I glanced back, and particularly to the left, at some of the side blocks. The side blocks were now deserted, the men having drifted forward, except by their occupants, now forgotten, kneeling or crouching upon them, their necks in their collars, fastened by their chains to the block rings. I smiled to myself. Some of the merchandise looked angry; no longer were they the centers of attention; they, though naked and chained, and on slave blocks, had been simply put from mind; they must remain behind, alone, precisely where they were, chained, while masters chose to ignore them, bestowing their attention on an item of at least temporarily greater interest. Already the merchandise was exhibiting the vanity of slaves. But let them rest content for, when the auction was done, men doubtless would drift back to their perusal; they would then be again subjected to the close scrutiny of masters; they would then be examined again, and closely, to see if they might be of any interest.
"I believe we are ready to proceed," called the gross, corpulent f
ellow in the soiled blue-and-yellow shirt. With his kaiila quirt he indicated the suspended girl. "We have here the last item to be put up for auction this evening, a fair-skinned, red-haired barbarian beauty."
"We do not know if she is a beauty or not," called a man. "Strip her!"
"But I hasten to assure you," continued the slaver's man, giving no heed to the fellow's enthusiastic contribution, "that the market will remain open for yet another Ahn following this auction. You are then invited to reconsider with an eye for prospective purchase the trinkets and baubles strewn forth for your delectation upon our side blocks."
"On with it!" cried a man. "Let us see her!"
"We have saved this barbarian beauty for last," said the slaver's man. "She will make a fitting conclusion to the auctions of this evening, such a splendid evening at the house of Ram Seibar! Behold her! Is your interest not whetted?"
I could see, by glancing around, that the interest of several of the men was indeed whetted.
"Even clothed," laughed the auctioneer, "is your interest not whetted?"
"That it is!" laughed more than one man.
"Let us see her!" called another.
That the woman was being sold last in the auctions does not indicate, per se, that she was the most beautiful. On the other hand, it was undeniable that she was quite beautiful. Several of the girls I had seen auctioned off during the course of the evening, incidentally, had been quite extraordinary. This woman, at any rate, was surely among the most beautiful. Some of the girls auctioned earlier had also been presented to the buyers initially clothed, to one extent or the other, their clothing then being removed, sometimes sardonically and ceremoniously, during the course of their sale. This was the only woman, however, who had been presented before the buyers strung up by the wrists.
"A fair-skinned, red-haired barbarian beauty," called the auctioneer, "highly intelligent, exquisitely refined and of delicate sensibilities, a woman on her own world doubtless of class and station—but on this world, our world of Gor, only a meaningless piece of slave meat, a girl who will learn to wear a collar, a girl who will learn to serve and obey, a girl who will learn to please, a girl who will learn that she belongs, and rightfully, to men!"
