I walked about her and, with my foot, turned her again to her stomach.
'What is to be done with her?' asked Lola.
'Clean her stinking slave's body,' I said, 'and then kennel her for the night.'
'Look,' said Lola, suddenly, 'she is unconscious.' She bent down beside the girl. 'She has fainted,' she laughed.
'It has been hard on her,' I said. 'She had to learn much this evening.'
'In a collar a girl must learn quickly,' said Lola.
'It is true,' I said.
I turned away. I was weary.
'Master,' called Lola.
'Yes,' I said.
'How is she to be treated?'
'You are first girl,' I said. 'You hold switch rights over her. See that she is worked well.'
'Full discipline?' asked Lola.
'Of course,' I said.
'Excellent, Master,' said Lola.
I hung the slave whip on its hook, and then went to the stairs, and, wearily, began to climb them. 'Master,' called Lola. When I reached the height of the stairs and stood upon the landing before my bedroom door, I turned to look down upon Lola. 'Yes,' I said. 'Are you certain that, when I have cleaned her, you do not want me to send her to your room?' she asked. 'No,' I said. 'I do not even want to see her until the party.'
'Yes, Master,' said Lola. 'Master.'
'Yes,' I said.
'You mentioned entertainment.'
'Yes,' I said.
'Is this pretty little slave,' asked Lola, indicating the unconscious former Miss Henderson, 'to be included in the entertainment?'
'Of course,' I said.
Chapter 20 — THE PARTY; AFTER THE PARTY
'Another bit of larma, Master?' asked the slave, kneeling behind me and to my left. I turned and, from where I sat cross-legged behind the low table, removed a small, crisp disk of fried larma, with a browned-honey sauce, from the silver tray. I regarded the slave. She put her head down, deferentially. She wore a tasteful garment of bluish gauze, in three layers, which fluffed about her. It came high on her thighs. I could see that her breasts in the garment, as she knelt, were exquisite. Her arms and feet were bare. Her hair was quite dark. My collar was lovely on her throat. I then turned my attention again to the dancers.
There were three of them in blue silk and golden collars. Lola had been fortunate enough to make arrangements for their rental only this morning. They belonged to a fellow who was en route to Port Cos, and thence to Turmus, and thence to the island of Cos itself, where it was his intention to exhibit and vend them. She had found them in holding cages, near the spice wharf. The address of their master, who was residing in an inn nearby, was given to her by their keeper. They were due to be shipped west to Port Cos at noon tomorrow. Tonight, however, he was pleased to make some coins on them.
'They are beautiful,' said Glyco, the merchant of Port Cos to whom we owed so much. It was he who, in effect, had organized the resistance of the river towns to the pirates, and had had the good sense and fortune to recruit the redoubtable Callimachus of Port Cos as his field commander, a man without whose military skills and reputation on the river our projects might have been doomed to failure.
'Thank you,' I said.
I looked about the table. Seven men, including myself, were present, Glyco, high merchant of Port Cos; Tasdron, Administrator of Victoria; Aemilianus, leader of the naval forces of Ar upon the Vosk; Calliodorus, captain of the _Tais_; and my friends, Callimachus and Miles of Vonda, who had brought with him his slave, Florence. Earlier, as a portion of our entertainment, she had played on the lyre, and sung for us. She had been warmly applauded, which, I think, pleased muchly both the shy slave and her master. Miles of Vonda had had her trained in these skills. As a free woman she had been, in effect, without accomplishments. Now she had additional ways in which to please her master. She now knelt behind her master. She wore a yellow tunic, and her collar.
I watched Shirley, the blond, voluptuous slave whom I had taken from Reginald, of the _Tamira_, in the battle on the river. She was one of three women whom I had had following our victory over the pirates, the other two being Lola and the former Miss Henderson. For this night Lola, who was first girl, had dressed Shirley much like the other slave, save that the gauze of Shirley's garment was yellow.
For the last few days I had been boarding Shirley at a kennel in Victoria, but I had had her brought home this evening that she might help with the serving, and for another reason. She, kneeling, poured wine from a narrow, long-spouted silver vessel into the cup of Aemilianus, of Ar's Station. At the kennel, incidentally, I had arranged for Shirley to receive the whipping which had been due to her for having lifted her head without permission on the deck of the _Tina_. Gorean masters seldom forget such details, and their girls know it. This helps in the maintenance of their discipline.
Lola was in the kitchen, supervising the food and service. She was not to be permitted to present herself until later, and then she would do so in the manner of my choosing. She knew only that she was in some way to be involved in my entertainment.
I again turned my attention to the dancers. Their movements were graceful and decorous. One would scarcely know that they were slaves, save, of course, that they wore collars and danced their beauty for men. Their movements were lovely, and refined. Free women might even have been present. This was suitable for the type of party which I had planned. This was not the type of party at which, say, the women of the enemy are forced to dance naked and, afterwards, are to be allotted to the victors as slaves, according to the whim of the commander or according to the fall of the dice.
Similarly it was not one of those parties in which a given number of slaves must dance within a circle of free men, of equal number, with whips, stripping themselves to the strokes of the whips and then dancing towards the men. The man who does not accept the woman whips her back from him; similarly the woman who does not dance toward a man is whipped until she does. It is common in this form of dance to make each woman, dancing to each man, go about the circle at least five times. In this way the men have a chance to inspect the women, and consider which ones interest them. Needless to say, it is not long before the women are striving desperately to please the men. Only when she has sufficiently pleased a man is she permitted to crawl from the dancing circle to the cushions of her master for the Ahn.
The lead dancer reminded me somewhat of the slave, Melpomene, who had once been the Lady Melpomene, of Vonda. She was similarly figured to Melpomene; similarly, she had the same dark hair, complexion and high cheekbones as Melpomene. She was not Melpomene, however. I smiled to myself. I doubted that Melpomene, whose slave heat had been ignited, could have managed to dance in such a refined fashion before men. Even had she striven to do so I think that small expressions and subtle movements would have betrayed her, to the detriment of the type of dance which she was supposed to be performing. I regarded the dancers.
I supposed that if, at some time in the future, their passions were to be ignited, then they, too, would be ruined for this particular type of dance. I was fortunate, thus, to have been able to obtain them when I did. Too, of course, doubtless their master would keep a close eye on them, at least until he had managed to get a good price for them. After that, what would it be to him if they learned, in the arms of a strong master, what it was to be a full slave.
I wondered where Melpomene was now. Having seen her dance I had little doubt but what she would be being used as a dancer. It takes a long time, of course, for a woman to become a good dancer. She might spend years in low taverns, or as a carnival dancer, or even as a street dancer, for provocation and use, on her leash, before her skills develop to a point at which she is good enough, as it is said, 'to be permitted to dance before a Ubar.'
