'But you are pretty,' she said. 'Men are more lenient with a pretty girl. There is hope for you.'
'Thank you, Mistress,' I whispered.
'Why have you not moved your left ankle?' asked Sucha.
'The bells,' I whispered.
'What of them?' asked Sucha.
'They shame me,' I said. 'They make me feel so much a slave.'
'Excellent,' said Sucha. Then she snapped, 'Rise, Slave Girl!'
I leaped to my feet with a jangle of bells. I was a belled slave.
'Walk to one end of the room and back,' said Sucha.
'Please, no Mistress!' I begged. She lifted the whip. I did as she commanded. When I again stood before her she, to my dismay, touched me.
I turned my head away, biting my lip in shame.
'Excellent,' she said. 'A mere jangle of slave bells and you are ready for the arms of a man.'
'Please, Mistress,' I begged.
'You are a hot little slut,' she said. 'Kneel before the mirror.'
I did so.
'There are one hundred and eleven basic shades of slave lipstick,' said Sucha. 'Much depends on the mood of the master.'
'Yes, Mistress,' I said.
Later many of the other girls joined us in the room of preparation, for they must serve, as I, in the repast of the evening. It is common in a Gorean fortress, if it is not under siege, for the evening to be a time of pleasure for the men.
'In five Ehn,' cried a man from outside, 'you must be in the hall of the feast.'
The girls cried out nervously, making last minute additions or adjustments to their jewelries and silks. Some intently applied cosmetics. Two nearly fought over a small disk of eye shadow, but the whip of Sucha, lowered between them, divided them. Sulda seemed radiant, returned from the couch of Hak Haran. She applied lipstick. The girls smoothed their silks.
I looked at the incredibly lovely girl in the mirror, she bedecked in a rope of red silk, made-up, perfumed vulnerable, soft, with armlets and bracelets, golden beads intertwined in the Turian collar.
'She is beautiful,' I whispered. Sucha had much helped me.
'Rather pretty for a peddler's girl,' smiled Sucha.
'I am afraid,' I said.
'Do not be afraid,' said Sucha.
'What are my duties?' I asked.
'Exquisite beauty and absolute obedience,' said Sucha.
I looked at the girl in the mirror. I remembered the words of Thurnus. 'You belong at the feet of men,' he had said. I looked at the girl in the mirror. Her ankle was belled. She was beautiful. She was a collared, silked, perfumed slave. She was very beautiful. I had no doubt she belonged at the feet of men. She was a slave girl. She was I.
'Exquisite beauty and absolute obedience,' said Sucha.
'Yes, Mistress,' I said.
I heard the pounding of a metal bar on the inner gate leading to the quarters of the slave girls.
The girls were frightened. Even Sucha seemed frightened. 'Hurry,' she cried. 'Hurry!'
We fled from the room of preparation, to the inner gates. Soon I, and the others, had been ushered through the two gates, and I, with them, found myself beyond the gates, barefoot on the carpeting, between the vases at the ornate walls, being hurried to the pleasure of masters.
12
The Silver Leaf
'Master?' I asked.
I knelt before him, lifting the platter of meats to him.
With a Turian eating prong he forked meat from the platter onto his plate. The girl kneeling beside him lifted wine to him.
I arose and went to kneel before the next man, to offer him viands from the platter I bore.
The sensuous music of Turia filled the room. The girl in yellow silk, belled, danced her beauty among the tables.
I had been more than a month now in the keep of Stones of Turmus.
Often was I kept late to serve the men. I had learned much from Sucha. I was a different girl now from the one who had been sold for six copper tarsks to Borchoff, Captain of the keep of Stones of Turmus. Well could he congratulate himself on his buy.
'What did she cost you?' a lieutenant had asked him.
'Six tarsks of copper,' he had said.
'You have an excellent eye for slave flesh,' had, said the lieutenant.
Borchoff had grinned.
I had hurried away.
'She is paga hot,' a soldier had once said. Then he had thrown me to his fellow. I could not help myself. Sometimes I lay awake in my barred alcove, weeping, not wanting to be a slave. 'You are a natural slave,' Sucha had once said to me. 'You were born to the collar.' 'Yes, Mistress,' I had said. I lay sometimes in my small cell, shamed, weeping. Strangely I thought often of Elicia Nevins. I had been her chief competitor in beauty at the exclusive college I had attended on Earth. How, I thought, she would have laughed at me, and scorned me, to see me now, her former beauty rival, as a slave.
'Meat, Dina!' cried a man.
I swiftly went to him, knelt, and lifted the platter to him. I did not wish to be whipped.
There were twenty-nine girls now in the keep of Stones of Turmus. The population in the slave quarters had changed somewhat; five girls had been sold to passing Turian merchants, affiliated with the keep, but, similarly, here and there, over the weeks, some six others had been acquired. Thus the stock was kept freshened for the men.
'You will not be sold, Dina,' Sucha had said to me. 'You are a prize.'
'Yes, Mistress,' I said.
We girls in the keep were pleasure slaves, but it must be clearly understood that we were the only girls in the keep. Thus, we served, too, as work slaves. Scrubbing must be done, and the sewing, and the washing and ironing of clothes, and the cleaning; too, we aided in the kitchen, usually in the preparing of vegetables and in the scouring of pots and pans; too, water must be carried to the men on the parapets; there was much work of a lowly and servile nature which it fell naturally to us, the girls of the keep, to perform. Yet generally I think we did not, have too much to complain of. We were permitted to sleep late in the slave quarters, and manual labors, for most of us, tended to be curtailed in the early afternoon, that we might rest and prepare ourselves for the evening. I think few of us did on the average more than two or three Ahn of light labors on a normal day. We were never under any delusion that our main task was not the delight and pleasure of our masters.
I was no longer low girl in the slave quarters. It was not that I had fought, for there were few girls there whom I suspected could not beat me, but that the matter had been determined by Sucha. She carried the whip. Each new girl, as she was introduced among us, became automatically low girl, the other girls being correspondingly advanced. We obeyed Sucha. She never hesitated to use the whip. We were kept in perfect order. I was not displeased. Had Borchoff not placed the whip in the hands of Sucha, I, for one, would have fared much more poorly in the slave quarters. Slave quarters, as I have mentioned, can become a jungle. This was prevented at Stones of Turmus by the whip of Sucha. I was not the only girl who was not displeased to be protected from
