me! My master would not wish it!'
'Your master,' said Targo, 'he who arranged for your capture and delivery, instructed that you be delivered to him with the pierced ears of a slave girl.' 'No,' she wept. 'No!'
A guard dragged the distraught Lady Rena of Lydius, a slave girl, back to her place in the line.
Inge then knelt before Targo. 'I am of the scribes,' she said, 'of high caste. Do not permit this to be done to me!'
'Your ears will be pierced,' said Targo.
She wept, and was dragged back to her place in line.
Lana then approached Targo.
I hated her.
She knelt before him, ingratiatingly, and put her head down. 'Please, Master,' she wheedled. 'Let it be done to the other girls, if you wish, but not Lana. Lana would not like it. It would make Lana sad. Lana would be happy if master would not have it done to her.'
I stood against the wall, in fury.
'Your ears will be pierced,' said Targo.
I smiled.
'It will lower my price!' cried Lana.
'I do not think so,' smiled Targo.
Ute had now had her left, as well as her right, ear lobe pierced, and had had the tiny steel rods and disks fixed in her ears. She was trying not to cry. She came and stood next to me.
She looked at me. 'You are so brave, El-in-or,' she said.
I did not answer her.
I was watching Lana and Targo.
'Please!' wept Lana, now genuinely frightened, and distressed, fearing that Targo would not yield to her entreaties. 'Please!'
'Your ears will be pierced,' said Targo.
'No,' cried Lana, terrified, weeping. 'Please!'
'Take this slave away,' said Targo.
I smiled as Lana was dragged, weeping, by a guard to her place in line. The Lady Rena of Lydius now left the platform, the rods fixed in her ear wounds. She could scarcely walk. A guard, holding her by the arm, half carried her to the wall, where he left her. She fell to her knees, and covered her face with her hands, weeping.
'I am a slave girl,' she wept. 'I am a slave girl.'
Inge, terrified, was now thrust onto the wooden platform.
I had no impulse to comfort the Lady Rena of Lydius. She was a fool. So, too, were Ute, and Inge, and the others.
It was interesting to me that the girls so objected to the piercing of their ears. What fools they were. I had never had my ears pierced on Earth, of course, but I had contemplated having it done. I might have had it done, if I had remained on Earth. Surely a great many of the girls and women I knew on Earth had had their ears pierced. How else would one wear the finest earrings? What fools these girls were. Inge shrieked, more with humiliation than pain, as the needle thrust through her right ear lobe.
'Be quiet, Slave,' said the leather worker.
Inge stifled her sobs.
'Do not move,' he cautioned her.
'Yes, Master,' she whimpered.
The piercing of the ears of women, only of slave girls, of course, was a custom of distant Turia, famed for its wealth and its nine great gates. It lay on the southern plains of Gor, far below the equator, the hub of an intricate pattern of trade routes. Some two or three years ago it had fallen to barbarians, nomadic warriors, and many of its citizens, in flight from the city, had escaped north. With then had come certain articles, techniques and customs. One could tell a Turian because he insisted on celebrating the New Year at the summer solstice, for instance. They also used very sweet, syrupy wines, which were now, in many cities, available. The Turian collar, too, a looser ring of steel, large enough for a man's fist to grasp on the girl's throat, was occasionally seen now in the northern cities. The piercing of the ears of slave girls, that they might have earrings fastened in them, was another Turian custom. It has been known on Gor before, but it was only with the flight of the escaping Turians that it had become more widespread recently.
The Turian camisk was also now occasionally see. It is rather like an inverted «T», the bar of the «T» having beveled edges. It passes from the girl's throat, in front of her body, between her legs, and is then lifted, pulled tight, and wrapped about the thighs. Its single cord fastens the garment behind the girl's neck, behind her back and then, after passing about her body once or twice, ties in front. It conceals her brand but exposes her back. The cord makes it possible to adjust the garment to a given girl. Tightening the cord accentuates her figure. The Turian camisk is worn tightly. Turians are barbarians. In private pens of Ko-ro-ba, where we were taken daily for training, we were taught to wear the garment. A master might require it of us. It is said that only a man knows how to tie a Turian camisk on a girl properly. There are many such saying on Gor. Inge was thrown, forcibly, against the wall, weeping. In her ears were the tiny metal rods. She tried to pull them from her ears and the guard, angrily, cuffed her, and, with a foot of binding fiber, lashed her wrists behind her body.
Inge was such a fool.
She knelt against the wall, the side of her face thrust against the boards, staining them with tears, her entire body shaking.
Ute was kneeling beside the Lady Rena of Lydius, who seemed uncontrollable. She had her arms about her shoulders, trying to soothe her.
Ute looked up at me. 'You are so brave, El-in-or,' she whispered.
'You are a fool,' I told her.
Lana crept to the wall and knelt there, her face in her hands.
'I hate Turians,' screamed the Lady Rena of Lydius.
Ute held her more closely. She kissed her. The Lady Rena put down her head, weeping.
Turia, I had heard, had not been destroyed. Indeed, I had heard that it now stood once again, much as before, the sovereign city of the southern plains, and that much of its wealth, by exchanges and trading, had been regained. It was fortunate, I gathered, for the economy of Gor, particularly the south, that the city had not been destroyed. Much of the hides, the horn and leather which found its way northward came from Turia, obtained from the Wagon Peoples of the treeless, southern plains, and many of the manufactured goods, and goods of price, which found their way to the far south, and even to the Wagon Peoples, were produced in, or passed through Turia. Perhaps the Tuchuks, one of the fierce Wagon Peoples, traditional enemies of Turia, her conquerors, had spared her for such reasons that they might have outlet for their goods and a source of goods they could not well manufacture, or acquire, for themselves. For whatever reasons, Turia, though once conquered, had been spared. It was the best known of the Gorean cities below the equator, sometimes called Ar of the south. 'I hate Turians!' screamed the Lady Rena of Lydius. 'I hate them!' 'Be silent, Slave,' I told her.
'Do not scold her, El-in-or,' chided Ute. 'She is sad.' Do not cry so, Lady Rena,' said Ute to the girl. She again held her and kissed her.
I looked away. I was hungry. The last of the girls, her ears pierced, fled from the low, wooden platform, running to crouch among us, weeping, at the wall. I hoped that we would have a good lunch. The food was better in the private pens, where we were trained, than in the public pens of Ko-ro-ba, areas of which were available for rent to passing slavers, where we were housed at night. In the public pens, state slaves are kept as well as the merchandise of slave caravans passing through the city. A master of the city, of course, who might be leaving the city temporarily, could also rent space in the public pens, to board his slaves, there. Most masters, however, if inclined to board their slaves, would do so at the private pens, where the food and facilities were better. Another reason for a master to board a slave at the private pens, of course, is that she might, while there, be given training, or further training, that she might be more delicious slave to him upon his return. Indeed, even if a master does not leave the city, it is not unknown for him to send a girl to the private pens, that her value to him, and to others, if she be sold, might be improved. Girls, incidentally, do not care to be boarded. Life in the pens, intentionally, is made hard. When released from the pens, a girl is almost always desperately eager to please her master, that she not be returned to them, for further training.
We trained during the day, commonly in private facilities, under the tutelage of pleasure slaves, but in the evening we would be returned to the long tiers of cages in the public pens. These cages are heavily barred, and the bars are rather, irritatingly, widely set, but we cannot squeeze between them. The cages are strong enough to hold men, which, doubtless, sometimes they do. Straw is spread on the metal plating which is the floor. There are four girls to a cage. I shared mine with Ute, Inge and Lana. We are supposed to keep our own cage clean, but Lana and I let Inge and Ute do this work. We are too valuable to do such work.
I did not care particularly for the wooden bowls of stew and bread we commonly had at the public pens, but I was hungry and ready to eat even such, and with enthusiasm. In vegetables and fruits, and, if our group had trained, acceptably, after the evening meal, before being returned, hooded, to the public pens, we would be given candies or pastries, or, sometimes, a swallow of Ka-la-na wine. Once Inge had broken down in training, and wept, and we had been denied our little delicacies. When we reached the cage at the public pens Lana and I had beaten her, preventing Ute from interfering.
'El-in-or' snapped Targo.
I gathered he must have called once before, and I had not heard.
I ran to him and knelt before him.
'To the platform,' he said.
I looked up at him. 'Why?' I asked.
He looked at me.
Quickly I leaped up and ran to the low wooden platform, and knelt again upon it. I did not understand.
The leather worker had not left the room. He was reaching into his leather bag. I was puzzled. Then it occurred to me that he must want to check the rods in my ears, to see that they were fixed properly.
I knelt quite straight, but impatiently. I wanted my lunch.
I wished that he would hurry.
'Put your head back,' he said.
I looked at him with sudden apprehension. In his hand he held something which looked like a pair of plies, except that the claws were extremely slender, and bent in
