Actually, for those who may be unfamiliar with such things, what they spoke of was a consequence of the work of a form of physician on my native world, one who concerns himself primarily with the health and condition of teeth. The internal damaging of teeth is more common on my former world than on yours, a difference doubtless having much to do with differences in diet. In any event, the damaged tissue is often removed, the resultant opening being subsequently closed.
I looked up, piteously, at the man.
“You may close your mouth,” he said.
Gratefully I closed my mouth.
I remained on my knees. Slaves are commonly so, in the presence of free persons. Such things make clear the difference in status between the free and their properties.
And I now well knew myself a property.
The only question was who owned the property, who owned me?
“Too,” said the man to the woman.
“‘Too’?” she said.
“Yes,” he said. Then he said to me, “Say the alphabet.”
I could not read, but I had been taught the alphabet, by rote. Interestingly, he had had me recite the alphabet earlier, shortly after my arrival here, before I had been caged. I recited the letters, again, now, which I would not even have known were letters, if I had not been so informed in the house.
“There,” said the man, smiling. “Hear?” he asked.
“What?” said the woman, hesitantly.
“The mistakes,” said the man.
“Of course,” said the woman, but I was confident she was no more aware of the mistakes than I was. Indeed, I suspected she could not read. But the sumptuous raiment she wore surely suggested wealth, if not high caste.
The mistakes I had made, I unaware of them, had been taught to me, that they would mark me as a slave. Too, I was certain I had been taught certain pronunciations of words I was not likely to frequently hear, which were also, in their subtle way, entrapments. The free, of course, do not correct such mistakes, and let them pass, deliberately, as a matter of course. In this way it is difficult for the slave to understand what she might inadvertently be doing, which may call attention to her bondage. I had, some days ago, when out of the gambling house on an errand, barefoot, in my short, purple tunic, with its lettering on the back, seen a seemingly free woman, in lovely robes and veils, seized and stripped by guardsmen. Normally, when there is doubt as to the status or condition of a woman she is given to free women, who may then, with respect to her modesty should she be free, examine her body, for a possible collar, or brand. This one, however, was simply disrobed, bound hand and foot, and put in a wagon, for delivery to a market praetor, who would see to her return to her master, or, that failing, to her lashing, fugitive branding, and resale. I would not dare to speak to a free person, but I hurried to a tower slave in the crowd, trying to learn what had happened. The tower slave, however, would not demean herself by responding to the inquiry of a “half-naked, gambling-house girl.” A laundress, however, fresh from the troughs and bearing her bundle, looked at me, frightened, and said, “Slave Gorean.” “I see,” I had said. “It is an extra chain on us,” she said, “one we do not even know we wear.” “Yes,” I had said, uneasily, and hurried on, about my way. I, too, I was sure, wore such a chain.
“I am interested in an ignorant barbarian,” said the woman.
“A stupid barbarian?” asked the man.
“No,” she said, “one ignorant.”
Why, I wondered, would anyone want an ignorant girl? I supposed I was ignorant. I had not been that long on Gor. I hoped she did not want me for a serving slave. I did not even know the subtle fastenings of the robes of concealment, the layerings and arrangements of veils, the order of a woman’s bath, or such.
“Girl,” said the man.
“Master?” I said.
“When were you first collared?” he asked.
“In En’Kara,” I said, “in the house of Tenalion, of Ar.”
“That is a good house,” said the man to the woman.
“What year?” he asked me.
“This year, Master,” I said.
“There,” said the man. “This is your slave.”
“Twenty tarsks,” she said.
“Fifty,” he said.
“She is a barbarian, an untutored, ignorant barbarian,” she said.
I was not at all sure that the speaker herself was all that informed. Might she be a barbarian, as well? But I did not know the accent. Perhaps it was from the islands, or the far south.
“Barbarians make excellent slaves,” said the man. “They come from a world where there is little opportunity for their bondage. Slaves are mostly held in secret. On her world many men are crippled, confused, divided, set against themselves, taught to suspect their most basic, virile impulses. They are taught to fear manhood, and hold it as a thing of regret or shame. Accordingly, the women wander about, neglected, forlorn, lacking masters, denied the chain and whip.”
“I see,” said the woman.
“I did not, of course, mean women such as you, your graciousness,” he said.
“I trust not,” she said.
“But the slaves on this slave’s world,” said the man, presumably indicating me, I kept my head down, “are treated with great cruelty, a cruelty so great that it is difficult for such as we, scions of a high civilization, to even comprehend it, for they are denied what they need, and without which they cannot be fulfilled, their masters. It is little wonder they come hot from the block, tear-stained and needful, to put themselves to a man’s feet. They have come from a desert, to the green meadows of Gor. No longer do they thirst, no longer do they starve. Here they are put in collars.”
“Twenty,” said the woman, evenly.
“Perhaps forty-five?” suggested the man.
“No,” she said.
“Many men are fond of barbarians,” he said.
“I am not a man,” she said.
“You should have seen her,” he said, “in the tunic of the gambling house.”
“I am sure she was attractive,” said the woman.
“She was almost nude,” he said.
“If I buy her,” said the woman, “I may put her in a sack, left over from the transportation of suls.”
Such sacking is plain, coarse, and ill-woven.
Too, such garmenture is unflattering, and likely to solicit ridicule from one’s sister slaves.
“Behold the high slave!” they might laugh. “A slave?” might laugh another. “I must look more closely. I thought it a sack of suls!”
Such cloth, too, scratches.
It is a torment to put a slave in such a garmenture.
Some men avail themselves of such a means to demean or punish a girl.
“If you are interested in her attractiveness to men,” he said, “for example, you might wish to give her to one or another, for an evening, or such, for some purpose of yours, you might think in terms of a camisk, a ta-teera, a bit of rep-cloth, such things.”
I knew that camisks, and ta-teeras, were frowned on in the streets, in public. The streets of Ar were not the aisles of taverns, the vestibules and stairwells of insulae, the corridors in a military camp. Still one would see them. Indeed, in some of the lower paga taverns, the girls wore only their bells and collars. Little kaissa was played in such taverns.
“Twenty,” said the woman.
“Let us say, forty,” suggested the man.
“I wish you well,” she said, turning about, with a swirl of garmenture.
