'Do it,' he said.
25 The Tunnels
'Enter,' said the woman.
It was now in the evening of the day in which Boabissia had hurried into the house marked with the «Tau near the call rope. That Tau was the design, or trademark, of course, of Tenalion of Ar, one of the well-known slavers of the city. 'Tau' is the first letter of the name 'Tenalion'. I had recognized it immediately when I had seen it near the call rope. Indeed, it was identical with that on his place of business, which I had passed at various times when in Ar, a large, formidable structure located in the heart of Ar's slaving district, which housed various facilities pertinent to his trade, ranging from beautifully appointed sales room to discipline pits. I had also seen it at different times at the Sardar Fairs, at his display spaces.
I had not met him personally, however, until today. He had entertained Hurtha and myself, sharing some fine paga with us, of the House of Temus, my favorite, after Boabissia had been removed from the room, presumably to be transported to his house of business. By now she was doubtless marked and collared, and chained somewhere there, presumably in the lower pens, as she was for most practical purposes a new girl. He seemed a very pleasant fellow. The Tau on Boabissia's disk had reminded me, I suppose, of his Tau. On the other hand, it had been different, and Tau's, as other letters of the Gorean alphabet, are used in various designs and for various purposes. I had not realized, of course, that the current design of Tenalion's Tau had been changed from an older one, that which had appeared on Boabissia's disk. 'Enter,' said the woman. 'Enter the Tunnels,' She was sitting on a stool outside.
I lowered my head and entered through the small iron door, and began to descend a dimly lighted ramp to the interior. At the foot of the ramp there was another woman.
'It is a tarsk bit,' she said.
I put a tarsk bit into the copper bowl on the small table near her. To the woman's right was a barred gate. It was now open. Such gates are common in such establishments. They are generally open when the business is open, and closed when the business is closed. On the other side of the threshold hung a heavy curtain of red velvet.
The Tunnels was one of the slave brothels of Ludmilla, for whose establishments the street, the Alley of the Slave Brothels of Ludmilla, is named. She does not own all the brothels on the street, incidentally, nor the best of them, in my opinion, nor even the majority of them. It is only that several of them, five, to be exact, are owned by her, whereas no other entrepreneur owns more than two, this accounting apparently for the deprivation of the name. Her brothels, if it is of interest are the Chains of Gold, supposedly her best, costing at any rate a copper tarsk for admission, a common price for a paga tavern, and, all cheap tarsk-bit brothels, the Silken Cords, the Scarlet Whip, the Slave Racks and the Tunnels. On this street, too, of course, among many other sorts of establishments, such as shops and stalls, and smaller residences, are several insulae, among them the insula of Achiates.
I moved to the curtain and brushed it aside.
'Welcome,' said a woman. 'Welcome to the Tunnels.'
I stepped within, permitting the curtain to fall back behind me.
'Come this way,' she said.
She was a large, strong woman, rather straight in body and coarse in feature. She was clad in brief leather. It was suggestive of that of a warrior. She wore armlets and bracelets. She carried a whip. Such is useful in keeping the slaves in line.
'This way,' she said.
I followed her, threading my way among the small tables, and the mats, and the slave rings and clutching, moving, intertwined bodies, to a small table. I heard gasping, and a small cry of pain, and then a small cry of submission, and the movement of a chain on tiles. The room was crowded, but not too crowded. I heard conversation. Some musicians were playing in the half darkness. Some of these brothels are really not that much different from certain paga taverns. There, too, of course, girls go with the drinks, though dancers are commonly extra. The table was in the second row, or so, from the front of the room, where there was something of an open space. The musicians were on the right side of this, as I faced them. It was not easy to see at first. The room was illuminated, insofar as it was, with a soft, flickering, reddish light, the result of the flames of tiny tharlarion-oil lamps set in narrow red-glass enclosures on certain of the tables. In such a light, of course, interesting colorations, subtle, soft, constantly changing reddish hues, ranging, depending on the color of the glass and the mix of the lights, from dark, rose-colored pinks to creamy crimsons, are imparted to the flesh of white-skinned slaves. Too, there were many dark places and shadows. Some men are fond of privacy in such a place.
'Is this satisfactory?' she asked.
'Yes,' I said, sitting down, cross-legged, behind the small table.
'Oh!' said a woman, near me, half rearing up on a mat, and I saw her eyes, startled, for an instant, and that she was blond, and that her flesh appeared interesting in the light, and then she, the chain on her neck fastening her to the slave ring near the mat, was thrust back on the mat. 'Oh, yes!' she cried. 'Yes, Master!'
'Are you he called Tarl, of Port Kar?' said the woman who had conducted me to my place.
'Why?' I asked.
'I was told to watch for such a person,' she said.
'Who told you?' I asked. I had come to the Tunnels in response to a message, delivered to me by Achiates, the owner of the insula in which Hurtha and I were rooming. He had, it seemed, if he were telling the truth, and I had no particular reason to doubt it, found the message thrust under his door. She looked about. 'I do not see him here now,' she said.
'Are you this Tarl of Port Kar?'
'I am called Bosk,' I said.
'Oh,' she said. This information did not seem to make much difference to her, one way or the other. I watched her. She did not, as far as I could tell, glance at any particular person, nor in any particular direction. I detected nothing unusual. I did not think, in any case, she would be more than the conveyor of a message.
I looked about. Various folks had entered after us. They, too, in their turns, were being seated. There were two or three hostesses, clad and accoutered similarly to mine.
One fellow was carrying a large sack over his shoulder. Even in the dim light certain curvatures seemed suggested within the sack. Too, there was a squirming within it which suggested that its occupant was bound. He was speaking to one of the hostesses.
'What is that?' I asked my hostess.
'It is a joke,' she said. 'He has captured a free female. We will put her stripped back in one of the tunnel alcoves. Her wrists will be braceleted behind her, chained to a slave ring. She will be unable to speak, being perfectly gagged. She will be left there in the darkness, helpless.'
'But she might be used,' I said.
'It is not impossible,' she said. 'It is a matter of chance. Access to her will be as unrestricted as that to a slave.'
'Do you approve of such things?' I asked.
'If she is a feminine female,' she said, 'of course. Such belong to men.' 'It is a splendid joke,' I said.
'Yes,' she said.
'What is done with them later?' I asked.
'Nothing,' she said. 'We just put them out naked in the back, in the morning. If they have been used, however, we tie their hands behind their back and, on a cord about their waist, suspend a punched tarsk bit on their belly.'
'Why would someone do this sort of thing to a free woman?' I asked.
'Perhaps they found her displeasing in some way,' she said, 'and thought it might do her a bit of good, to discover something about what it is to be a female.'
'I see,' I said.
