'That is so,' he laughed.
'Stand aside, Gentlemen, if you would,' said a voice near us, that of a slaver'sman.
We stepped back and he, from a basket, hurled an assortment of scraps, such ascrusts of bread and rinds of fruit, into the muddy pit. It was the refuse, thegarbage, I gathered, from a meal of the slaver's men.
In the pit the girls regarded the refuse with horror. Then I saw the small,chained hand of one reach forth toward a piece of roll. She picked it up andthrust it in her mouth. Another girl then reached to a bit of fruit. Anotherthen snatched at a gravy-sopped wedge of yellow Sa-Tarna bread. Then, in aninstant, in their chains, they scrambled in the mud after the garbage, twistingand shrieking, caught and restricted in their chains, scratching, and rollingand fighting, for the least of the tidbits cast to them by a free man.
'They are slaves,' said the man near me, as we returned to the railing.
'Yes,' I said. Too, I saw that their education had begun.
'There is better stock inside, I hear,' said the man, 'hidden away until thetime of the sale, some even in the barbarian garments in which they werecaptured.'
'That is interesting,' I said.
'But they, too,' said the man, 'will learn to take food on their belly.'
'Of course,' I said. Then I turned away from the railing. I was angry that I hadnot been able to locate Grunt, the trader. In the morning, with or without him,I would enter the Barrens.
7 Ginger
'Barbarians! Barbarians for sale!' called the fellow, standing on the circularwooden platform, outside the opened gate of the large, palisaded enclosure.
From within I saw a nude woman, her hands tied behind her back, being draggedforth, each arm in the charge of a slaver's man.
'Barbarians for sale!' call the fellow on the platform. He was a gross,corpulent fellow, and wore a long, opened, soiled shirt of blue-and-yellow silk.
His leather trousers were fastened with a wide, triply buckled belt. To thisbelt was fastened a substantial, beaded sheath, apparently containing a stout,triangular-bladed dagger. He wore, too, kaiila boots, with belled, silver heelpoints, kaiila goads. In his hand there was a long, supple kaiila quirt of blackleather, about a yard in length. His hair was bound back with strands oftwisted, blue-and-yellow cloth. His caste, even in the town of Kailiauk, wasthat of the slavers.
The woman, her hands tied behind her, each arm in the rude grasp of the slaver'sman, was thrust to the height of the platform, beside the corpulent fellow.
'In addition to our stock of fine merchandise,' called the corpulent fellow, 'wehave just received a new lot of barbarians!'
These would be the same girls of whom I had seen several this afternoon, in theslave pits within the compound. I had come again, in the evening, after supper,to the compound of Ram Seibar. I thought I might look in on some of the sales.
Afterwards I might go to a tavern, to have a cup of paga and see if I could renta girl to take to my room for the night, to return her in the morning.
'They have not yet been picked over,' said the man. 'This little plum, juicywith pleasures for a master,' he said, indicating the girl on the platform withhim, with a gesture of his kaiila quirt, 'is one of the sorriest of the lot.'
This, in my opinion, was not true. I thought she would have ranked rather highamong the girls. To be sure, the most luscious merchandise, presumably to besold rather late in the evening, had probably not even been put in the pits.
'Display her, Lads,' said the fellow. The two slaver's men thrust the womanforward, toward the crowd, and bent her backwards. She whimpered.
'And this is one of the worst of the lot,' said the fellow. The two slaver's menturned the woman first to one side, and then to the other. 'Meat so fresh thatit has not yet even been marked!' said the fellow. 'That is enough, Lads,' hesaid. They then turned the woman about and dragged her down the steps and backinto the compound. 'If you would see more,' said the man to those of us gatheredabout, about the outdoor platform, 'you must come within. Within you may buyher, and others like her, from the side blocks. Too, even more lusciousmerchandise you may seek from the central block in open bidding!' I wondered ifthe woman knew that she was, in all likelihood, to be soon branded. In mostGorean cities it is illegal to offer an unbranded woman in a public sale. Thisis presumably in deference to the delicacy and sensibilities of free women. Thebrand draws a cataclysmic gulf between the Gorean free woman, secure in herarrogance, beauty and caste rights, and the stripped, nameless, rightlessslaves, suitably vended as the mere lovely beasts they are in the flesh marketsof this primitive, gorgeous world. Unbranded women, of course, may be soldprivately, for example, as fresh captures to slavers, or, say to men who havespeculated that they might find them of interest.
'Barbarians! Barbarians for sale!' now continued to call the fellow on thewooden platform outside the gate to the compound of Ram Seibar. 'In addition toour usual stock of fine merchandise, we have just received a new lot ofbarbarians. They have not yet been picked over. They will be put up for salewithin the Ahn. Step within, Noble Gentlemen, and examine our offerings.
Patronize the house of Ram Seibar! Free drinks! No purchase necessary!'
I felt a small tug at my sleeve, and then felt my arm delicately held. I felt asoft cheek pressed against my arm. 'Master,' whispered a voice. I looked down,and the girl, with loose, auburn hair, looked up. She smiled. 'Accompany me toRandolph's tavern,' she said. 'I will give you much pleasure.' About her throat,narrow, sturdy and closely fitting, was a steel collar. I stepped back, that Imight see her better. She wore a short, fringed, beaded shirtdress. This camehigh on her thighs. It was split to her waist, well revealing the sweetness andloveliness of her breasts. It was belted upon her with a doubly looped, tightlyknotted rawhide string. Such a string is more than sufficient, in its length,and in its strength and toughness, to tie a woman in a number of ways. She wasbarefoot. About her left ankle there was, about two inches high, a beaded cuff,or anklet. Her garb was doubtless intended to suggest the distinctive,humiliating and scandalously brief garment in which red savages are sometimespleased to place their white slaves. One difference, however, must surely benoted. The red savages do not use steel collars. They usually use high, beadedcollars, tied together in the front by a rawhide string. Subtle differences inthe styles of collars, and in the knots with which they are fastened on thegirls' necks, differentiate the tribes. Within a given tribe the beading, in itsarrangements and colors, identifies the particular master. This is a common way,incidentally, for warriors to identify various articles, which they own.
'It is my hope that Master will find Ginger pleasing,' she said.
'Ginger?' I asked.
'Master?' she asked.
'Are you a barbarian?' I asked.
'Once, Master,' she whispered. 'But I have been trained. I am no longer astranger to my collar.'
'Watch out!' cried a man.
'Oh!' cried the girl. I seized her and pulled her from the place where shestood. Two kaiila thundered past.
'Make way!' we heard. 'Make way!' There was then the thudding of the clawed padsof kaiila, several of them, almost upon us. 'Ho! Ho!' called their drovers,riding behind them, swirling their coiled rawhide ropes in the air. I and theothers backed against the wall of the compound of Ram Seibar. The kaiila,perhaps a hundred and fifty of them, thundered past. I did not think such beastsshould be run through the streets, but it sometimes pleases their drovers to doso. It had happened more than once since I had been in Kailiauk. The kaiila werepresumably from the northern ranches and would be sold in Kailiauk, and in thetowns to the south.
'It is needless for that to be done in that fashion,' said a fellow near me.
'There are shorter routes to the corrals and the wired pastures.'
'Individuals are sometimes injured,' said another man.
'The tavern girls live in terror of them,' said another fellow.
