cushioned tiers, with its exposition cages of silver bars, with its great, torch-lit, golden auditorium which might hold more than two thousand buyers, with its great central block, with its height and dignity, from which might be expertly vended even the stripped daughters of Ubars. I looked about. The slaver’s man was nowhere in sight. I must complain. I must call their attention to their mistake.
I thought of calling out, but thought the better of it.
What if there had been no mistake?
I had been the last on the coffle to be delivered.
I had dared to suppose then that I was the best, that saved for last. But what if I had been saved for last, as I had been thought not the best, but the least? Could it be that others might regard me as less beautiful, less desirable, than I regarded myself? Was I less beautiful, less desirable, than I had thought? Surely I had been regarded as one of the most beautiful girls in my sorority! But, of course, we had never been put beside Gorean slaves. I did not know my ranking in the coffle, nor if I had a ranking in the coffle. I had no idea of the quality of the coffle as I had been hooded.
I looked about.
“What do they call you?” asked one of the girls, one of the brunettes.
“Allison,” I said.
“You are a barbarian,” said one of the girls.
“I am from Earth,” I said.
“Where is Earth?” she asked.
“It is far away,” I said.
“Barbarians are ugly, and stupid,” said the darker blonde.
“I am neither ugly nor stupid,” I said.
“If she were ugly and stupid,” said another of the brunettes, “she would not have been put under the iron, she would not be here, she would not be kajira.” I could not place her accent.
“She has skinny legs,” said another of the brunettes.
“No,” said the brunette, she with the unusual accent, “they are shapely and slender. Many men like that.”
“Well,” said the first brunette, “they are well exposed.”
“True,” said the girl with the accent, “and it goes nicely with her height.”
I was not especially tall. I was of medium height. Nora was taller than I. So, too, was Jane. I had been a bit taller than Eve. I was pleased to hear that my legs might be acceptable to a man. Some doubtless bought with such things in mind.
“I do not want to be sold with a barbarian,” said the light blonde. “It is humiliating.”
“I would rather be sold with a barbarian than with you, traitress!” snarled the darker blonde.
“I was high in the Merchants!” said the light blonde.
“And you are now yourself merchandise,” laughed one of the brunettes.
Tears brightened the eyes of the light blonde.
“You are fortunate to be such,” said another of the brunettes. “You misread your politics. You thought Ar irrecoverably fallen. You betrayed your Home Stone, as much as Talena of Ar or Flavia of Ar. You cast your lot with the occupation, abetting their crimes, conniving with the enemy, flattering officers, feasting and jesting, profiteering, exploiting a starving citizenry, battening on the misery of a confused, leaderless, beaten, subdued populace.”
“One must do what one can! One must look out for one’s self!” wept the light blonde.
“You did not know Marlenus would return,” said one of the brunettes, unpleasantly.
“None did,” said another.
“I am not a slave,” wept the light blonde. “I am the Lady Persinna, high in the Merchants, the Lady Persinna of Four Towers!”
One of the brunettes laughed. “Listen to the branded piece of collar meat,” she said.
“No!” said the former Lady Persinna.
“You are now only goods, goods, slut,” said one of the brunettes.
“No! No!” said the former Lady Persinna.
“And you are fortunate to be goods,” said the darker blonde. “You were on the proscription lists. You should have been impaled!”
“Perhaps you were saved because you had pretty flanks,” said one of the brunettes.
“Perhaps,” said another, “because someone wanted you at his slave ring.”
She who had been the former Lady Persinna paled. Perhaps she knew of someone of which such a suggestion might be true.
I understood little of this at the time, but it became clearer later. Before I had been brought to Gor it seems a revolution had taken place in the city, Ar, in which upheaval an occupying force deriving from, or given fee by, the island ubarates of Cos and Tyros, and perhaps other states, had been ejected. It seems that a former Ubar, one named Marlenus, had returned from banishment or exile, or some prolonged absence, had rallied the city, and, in several days of fierce and bloody fighting, had cast out the invaders. Even while war was waged in the streets proscription lists had been posted and many traitors, profiteers, and such, hundreds, were seized by maddened citizens and publicly impaled. Later, the invaders flighted and the blood lust of an outraged citizenry largely spent, numbers of surviving profiteers and collaborators, as apprehended, were placed in several underground dungeons scattered throughout the city. Many were later executed by impalement, but others were embonded, men usually destined to the quarries or galleys, and women remanded to slave houses.
“It must be near the Tenth Ahn,” said a brunette.
I supposed that so. There were few shadows in the street. So what did it matter, if it were near the Tenth Ahn, noon?
Was that, in some way, important?
One girl, one of the brunettes, went to stand near the bars, sideways, fingering her hair. I saw her smile at a fellow, who seemed scarcely to notice, and did not stop from his way. She tossed her head, annoyed. Her sheet was at her ankles. Another girl stood at the bars, her hands over her head, holding to the bars, her sheet about her shoulders. Her hands might have been fastened there. She had her right cheek pressed against a bar. Another girl, one of the brunettes, now sat a bit back from the bars, her head up and back, leaning back on her hands, her knees slightly bent, her legs extended. Then she would sit differently, her knees drawn up, her hands clasped about them, looking out, between the bars. Her sheet was beside her. The dark blonde now reclined back, a few feet from the bars, on one elbow, on her sheet, her legs partly extended, one more than the other, looking out. She did this in such a way that the view of her between the bars would not be much obstructed by the positions of the other girls. It seemed she would not be much interested in what might lie outside the bars. What was that to her? Her attention seemed casual, at best. I suddenly recalled that I had been taught that pose. It is languid, but seductive. It lifts the hip nicely, in such a way that the hip-waist curve is nicely emphasized, this drawing attention to the promising delights of her love cradle.
I, and two others, were now at the back of the cell, by the rear cement wall. I and the brunette who had spoken for me were standing. To my right, kneeling, was the light blonde, a lovely female, the former Lady Persinna, of the Merchants. I supposed someone would be glad to get his hands on her. She seemed to be trying to make herself small. She was frightened. I, too, was frightened. The brunette with us, too, seemed frightened.
I gathered that this might have something to do with the approach of the Tenth Ahn.
“Look at them,” whispered the former Lady Persinna, regarding the others, the other three brunettes, and the dark blonde, all nearer the wall of bars. “See them! See them, the disgusting sluts!”
“They are slaves,” said the brunette with us.
“Disgusting sluts!” said the former Lady Persinna.
“You, too, are a slave,” said the brunette.
“No,” said the blonde. “I am free, a free woman! I am the Lady Persinna, of the Merchants, of Four Towers.”
“If you wish to obtain a good master,” said the brunette, “perhaps you, too, should strive to present yourself well, subtly, of course.”
“No, no!” said the blonde.
