Assassin of Gor

by Norman, John;

  I had seen that many of the seats in the higher tiers, those not reserved, had already been filled with citizens, many of whom were doubtless prospective buyers. This was surprising because the hour was still early; I supposed the crowd this night would be unusually large, even for the fourth night of the Love Feast; none of the citizens had paid much attention to my being brought under guard to the box of Cernus; he was Ubar; it is not unusual on Gor for a powerful victor to force his enemy to witness the sale of his own women, before he is either sold or slain himself.

  Philemon looked at me with his narrow ferret eyes and smiled. He pursed his thin, sour mouth.

  “Cernus will not arrive until the sales begin,” said he, “so we have something of a wait.”

  I said nothing.

  “Hood him,” said Philemon.

  I struggled but the huge wad of soured leather was thrust again in my mouth and the heavy hood, with its thick layers of leather, drawn over my head and locked.

  Hooded, my wrists locked in steel, my throat chained to the chair of my enemy, I knelt for perhaps two Ahn. During this time I was conscious of noise, the movement of men, the filling of the amphitheater. I wondered if Elizabeth, and Virginia and Phyllis, were yet in the ready cells, being prepared; I judged it unlikely, for they would probably be sold late, and would not be prepared until the sales were in progress; the last touches of their makeup might not even be made until minutes before they ascended the block. I felt rage and sorrow, rage at the twisting of events, the brilliance of my enemies, my own failures, and sorrow for Elizabeth, and the other girls; for Elizabeth in particular my heart cried out, for her hopes would be so cruelly dashed; she might not even discover that she was not on her way to safety and freedom, or how we had been tricked and used, until she found herself, to her horror, beneath the lash of a master to whom she would be only another slave.

  I heard movement about me and sensed that Cernus had now arrived.

  In a few moments I heard his voice. “Unhood the fool,” said he.

  The hood was peeled over my head and I shook my head and hair, gasping for breath.

  I saw Cernus in his chair, who smiled down at me. Beside me stood a man with pliers and a hook knife.

  “Do not raise your voice during the sale,” said Cernus, “or your tongue will be cut out.”

  I looked down at the block bitterly, not speaking.

  Cernus laughed to himself and turned his attention to his right, where stood Philemon, and conversed with the Scribe.

  As well as I could, given the wooden screens about the box of Cernus, I examined the interior of the amphitheater. It was now packed with the various caste colors of Gor. The aisles and passageways themselves were jammed with men, and some free women. The individual sounds of their conversations were undistinguishable, blurring into a melded roll of gray thunder, low-keyed, far-off. There was, however, a kind of tensity in the noise, reflecting, I suppose, an eagerness, an expectancy. I’m not sure what the seating capacity of the amphitheater was, theoretically, but I would guess that it would be in the neighborhood of four to six thousand; counting those crowded into the tiers, and standing and sitting in aisles, it might now have held twice that many; the air was hot with bodies; the faces of many of the men were streaked with sweat.

  A number of Musicians now filed out from the door at the foot of the block and took their places about it, sitting cross-legged on the floor. Those with string instruments began to tune them; there was a czehar player, the group’s leader, some kalika players, some flutists, players of the kaska, small drums, and others. Each of these, in his way, prepared himself for the evening, sketching out melodies or sound patterns, lost with himself.

  Even more individuals began to crowd into the amphitheater. Slaves on catwalks opened metal, shuttered vents in the ceiling, which is domed, and in the curved walls; I caught a breath of the cool air; outside I could see stars in the black Gorean sky; I could not see any of her moons.

  “It will soon begin,” said Cernus, turning in my direction, pleasantly.

  I did not deign to speak to him.

  He chuckled.

  There were vendors in the crowd. They had great difficulty in moving about. Still, given the size of the crowd, they seemed to have little difficulty retailing their goods in short order; they would then disappear down an exit, soon returning with more.

  Among the crowd, though it was predominantly male, there were, as I might have mentioned, several women, perhaps one in ten or fifteen; many of these were doubtless rich, and of High Caste; some of them were probably interested in picking up a serving slave; kettle wenches, so to speak, would probably be purchased at one of the minor markets; their bids would be made by a male agent; others of the women were perhaps just curious, interested in observing the beauty of the girls of other cities, wondering if it might match their own; others perhaps merely enjoyed the excitement and color of the sales, possibly thrilling to the sight of their sisters being sold nude into bondage; perhaps some, in the lights and shouts, imagined that it was they themselves who stood brazen and marvelous on the block, exciting men, driving them into frenzies of bidding, bringing higher and ever higher prices, beautiful women, slaves, sold at auction.

  Then the crowd stilled and the Musicians, too, were silent, as the energy lights in the amphitheater dimmed and went out, and another set of energy bulbs, to a pleased shout of the crowd, suddenly lit the block with a blaze of light.

  The block, in the light, looked very stark and massive. It was empty.

  I wondered how much the girls would be able to see from the block. I could make out, in the reflected light, the faces of those about me, and, as the moments passed, could make out more and more. The girls would be, of course, keenly aware of the crowd, its moods and responses, for this is extremely important in stimulating and tantalizing it, manipulating it to increase the frequency and quality of the bids. Even from the beginning Sura had trained Elizabeth, and Virginia and Phyllis, before men, that they might, from the responses of males, hasten their progress in the arts of the slave girl. Once Elizabeth had told me that Sura had informed them that they would, after a time, be able to see faces from the block. That was apparently important, being able to see the eyes of men, the attitude of their bodies, the movements of their shoulders.

  There was the sudden crack of a whip, loud and sharp, and the crowd leaped to its feet, for the sale had begun.

  A girl, wild, clad only in a brief tunic of gray toweling, as though fleeing, ran to the surface of the block, weeping, circling it, her hands outstretched to the crowd; this was done to the music of the Musicians; she turned this way and that, acting the frantic role of the fleeing slave girl. In a moment or two, behind her, a powerful man in a short blue and yellow tunic, the auctioneer, carrying a slender slave goad, almost a wand, climbed to the surface of the block; seeing him the girl turned to flee, and having nowhere to go, fell to her knees weeping at the center of the block, where the bit of toweling was torn from her and she leaped to her feet laughing, her hands wide to the crowd, to their shouts of amusement and encouragement.

  Then the auctioneer briefly and expertly displayed the girl, with deft touches of the wandlike slave goad, and began, simultaneously, to raise the first block calls. “Verbina, she is,” called he, “who so fears a man that she would flee him, at the risk of death and torture, White Silk and never before owned, yet certified ready for the chain of a master who would use her as she so richly deserves!” The crowd roared with amusement, enjoying the sport of the auctioneer. The first bid was some four gold pieces, which was good, and suggested that the night might go well. Prices of girls vary considerably with her caste, the supply of her general type and the trends of the market. A girl in the Curulean is seldom sold for less than two gold pieces. This is largely, doubtless, because the Curulean refuses to accept women for sale who are not genuinely attractive. In a rather brief amount of time Verbina was auctioned to a young Warrior for seven gold pieces. An extremely goo
d price, under relatively normal market conditions, for a truly beautiful woman of High Caste tends to be about thirty pieces of gold, though some go as high as forty, and fifty is not unknown; these prices, for women of low caste, may be approximately halved.

  The next lot was an interesting one, consisting of two slave girls, clad in the skins of forest panthers, from the northern forests of Gor, and chained together by the throat. They were driven up the steps by a whip slave and forced to kneel at the center of the block. The northern forests, the haunts of bandits and unusual beasts, far to the north and east of Ko-ro-ba, my city, are magnificent, deep forests, covering hundreds of thousands of square pasangs. Slave girls who escape masters or some free women, who will not accept the matches arranged by their parents, or reject the culture of Gor, occasionally flee to these forests and live together in bands, building shelters, hunting their food, and hating men; there are occasional clashes between these bands of women, who are often skilled archers, and bands of male outlaws inhabiting the same forests; hardy Slavers sometimes go into the forests hunting these girls, but often they do not return; sometimes Slavers simply meet outlaws at the edges of the forests, at designated locations, and buy captured girls from them; interestingly, at other locations, on the eastern edges of the forests, Slavers from Port Kar meet the female groups and purchase men they have captured; it is not too uncommon that a Slaver Warrior has entered the forest only to be captured by his prey, enslaved, and eventually, when the girls tire of him, be sold, commonly for arrow points and adornments, to Port Kar Slavers, whence he will find himself chained to the oar of a cargo galley.

  To the amusement of the crowd it took the whip slave, and two others, to strip the biting, scratching forest beauties. The pair was eventually sold to a collector for ten gold pieces; I trust the security of his Pleasure Gardens is superb, else he might waken to a knife at his throat and the demand for a tarn, and, perhaps eventually, in the rags of a slave, a seat on the bench of a cargo galley.

  The third lot was a High Caste girl of Cos who stood before us clad in the complete robes of Concealment, which, piece by piece, were removed from her. She was beautiful, and had been free; she was not trained; she was of the Scribes, and had been picked up by pirates from Port Kar. She did nothing to move the buyers but stood, head down, numb on the block until she was completely revealed. Her movements were wooden. The crowd was not pleased. There was only a two gold piece bid. Then taking the whip from the whip slave the auctioneer stepped to the disconsolate girl; suddenly, without warning, he administered to her the Slaver’s caress, the whip caress, and her response was utterly, and uncontrollably, wild, helpless. She regarded him with horror. The crowd howled with delight. Suddenly she threw herself, screaming hysterically, on the auctioneer, but he cuffed her to one side and she fell to her knees weeping. She was sold for twenty-five gold pieces.

  “The sales go well,” said Cernus to me.

  Again I refused to respond to him.

  Some of the girls, as the sales progressed, I recognized as from the House of Cernus. Lana, I recognized, who was sold for four gold pieces. Lot followed lot, and the bidding, on the whole, tended to increase. Usually the better merchandise is saved for later in the evening, and many of the buyers were waiting. Particularly, I suspected, were they waiting for the more than one hundred barbarians that Cernus had promised them, girls kidnapped from Earth to be Gorean pleasure slaves.

  Occasionally, during the evening, the auctioneer had dropped certain disparaging remarks about barbarians, comparing some of the beauties on the block to such. The crowd had growled at these remarks, and Cernus had smiled. I supposed the auctioneer had received his instructions from the House of Cernus. The auctioneer was to appear skeptical, cynical.

  I myself, in spite of my predicament, found myself being awestruck, again and again, by the beauty, the performances, the dances of the girls who were, lot by lot, brought before us; how beautiful are women, how fantastic, how tormenting, how superb, how marvelous, how excruciatingly maddening, and beautiful and marvelous they are!

  At last, late in the evening, the auctioneer remarked, with something of a sneer, that the first barbarian would be presented, and to remember that he had warned them to expect nothing.

  The crowd cried out angrily, “The barbarian! The barbarian!”

  I was startled when I saw the girl brought forth. It was perhaps the plainest of all the barbarians who had been brought on the black ships; though I knew the girl to be among the most intelligent, and also, I had heard, among the most responsive. She was an extremely quick-witted, lively girl, though perhaps somewhat plain. Now, however, as I saw her shuffled across the boards, stiff, wrapped in a worn, dark blanket, she looked dull, stupid. Her eyes didn’t seem to focus, and her tongue occasionally protruded at the side of her mouth. She scratched herself, and looked about herself, seemingly obtuse and surly. The crowd was taken aback, for such a wench would scarcely be presented on the meanest block of the smallest market in the city. I myself was startled, for I had seen the girl before and knew her somewhat; this was not her real person; the crowd, of course, would not know that. The auctioneer, as though desperately, tried to do his best for the girl, but soon jeers were forthcoming from the crowd, hissings and shoutings; when her blanket was removed from her, gracefully by the auctioneer, as though removing an expensive wrap from a lady of pearls and sophistication, she slouched so that one might have thought her back had been built in pieces, haphazardly; the crowd cried out in fury. The auctioneer, apparently losing his temper, responded angrily to some critics in the first tiers, and was himself hooted and decried. The girl seemed to understand nothing. Then, when poked with the slave goad, she called out in a nasal tone, not her own, in painfully, apparently memorized Gorean, “Buy me, Masters.” The crowd howled with disgust and laughter. The auctioneer seemed beside himself. The auctioneer, subtly, or apparently so, then administered the Slaver’s caress to her, but she scarcely noted the touch. Then I understood what was going on, perhaps belatedly, for I knew the girl, Red Silk before the black ships, was extremely responsive, and had even been used in the hall of Cernus for the amusement of his Warriors and guards; she had known the caress would be given; she had been ready; she had perhaps, in fact probably, been anesthetized. The crowd hooted and screamed for her to be taken away, while she looked at them in puzzlement, like a bosk cow, scarcely comprehending or concerned. I angrily admired the skill of Cernus. Doubtless, after this, the next lot would be his finest, and the comparison with this girl would be so startling as to cause men to forget the beauties who had preceded her; after this girl, a magnificent actress, the plainest of presentable women would have seemed brilliantly attractive; and a truly beautiful woman or women would be stunning beyond comparison.

  “What am I offered for this slave?” called the auctioneer.

  There were jeers and cries.

  Yet when he persisted, there were some token offers, perhaps by men who wished to obtain a kettle girl for next to nothing; I was not surprised to note that each time a legitimate offer was made, though small, it was topped slightly by a fellow in the robes of the Metal Workers, whom I knew to be a guard in the house of Cernus; at last, this agent of Cernus had purchased her back for the House for only seventeen copper tarn disks. I knew later, perhaps in another city, she would be well presented and would bring a good price.

  The auctioneer, as though in the throes of misery, almost threw the poor girl back down the stairs of the block, kicking her bit of dark blanket angrily after her.

  He glared up at the crowd. “I told you!” he cried. “Barbarians are nothing!”

  The auctioneer conferred with a market official, who kept lists of lot numbers and confirmed the bids and final sale with the buyers or their agents at the side of the block. The auctioneer looked dejected when he returned to the center of the block.

  “Forgive me, Brothers and Sisters of my City, Glorious Ar,” he begged, “for I must bring yet more barbarians before you
.”

  The crowd, or much of it, stormed to its feet. I even heard some angry pounding on the wooden screens surrounding the box of Cernus. But Cernus only smiled. They screamed imprecations on the auctioneer, on the Curulean, even some of the braver ones, anonymous in the pressing throng, on the House of Cernus itself.

  “Observe closely,” said Cernus to me.

  Again I did not deign to respond to the Slaver, now Ubar of Ar.

  Suddenly the lights of the amphitheater went out, plunging that great, crowded room into darkness. There were shouts of surprise from the crowd, some screams of startled women. Then, after a moment, the great block, and that alone, was again illumined with a blaze of light. The crowd shouted its pleasure.

  It was as though the sales were beginning again, and now truly for the first time.

  The auctioneer sprang to the block and, from the darkness at the foot of the steps, was hurled a chain leash, and then two more. He held them for a moment and then, keeping them taut, stepped back. He met resistance. Below, in the darkness, there came the sudden, startling, savage report of a slave whip, snapped three times.

  Then, regally, in black cloaks, with hoods, three women, two girls and their leader, climbed the stairs to the block, backs straight, heads high, their features concealed in the folds of the hood. Each of them had her wrists braceleted before her body, and each slave chain led to the slave bracelets of one of the girls; the lead girl, probably Elizabeth, was on a somewhat shorter chain than the two behind her, one on each side, doubtless Virginia and Phyllis. Their black cloaks were rather like ponchos with hoods, save that there were slits through which their arms emerged. The length of the cloak, which was full and flowing, fell to their ankles. Their feet, of course, were bare. They stood near the center of the block, their leashes in the hands of the auctioneer.