Assassin of Gor (42 page)

I stumbled again, on one of the large, broad, flat stepping stones, and fell forward and was jerked by the chain tearing at the back of my neck, and struggled again to my feet, hearing through the thick layers of leather in the slave hood the laughter of the guards, as though far away.

The girls, when brought to the Curulean, are braceleted and naked; they have been chained in slave wagons; they are brought to a large, heavy, barred gate in the rear of the large building, through which they are led; the bracelets are, of course, to secure them; the lack of clothing is simply to save the trouble of transporting numerous sets of slave livery back to the House; by the time the girls arrive at the Curulean the slave livery which had been theirs may already have been washed and be drying, soon to be ready for issue to another.

"This is the Curulean," I heard Philemon of Tyros say, the words sounding far off, blurred through the hood.

The wagon stopped, and I felt the heavy, slack chain dragging at my collar.

This was the evening of the fourth day of the Love Feast, the climax of the feast insofar as the sales of slaves was concerned; this was the night Cernus would put his barbarian beauties on the block; tomorrow would be the concluding races and games, wild, dizzying hours in the Stadium of Tarns and that of Blades, bringing the Love Feast to its frenzied conclusion; it was tomorrow, in the Stadium of Blades, that Cernus had informed me I would die.

I heard two girls laugh and I felt my ankles seized and held while small hands thrust me on my back, taking me by surprise and throwing me heavily forward; I struck my shoulder on the back of the cart and the booted foot of a Warrior thrust me from the cart and I fell to my knees on the stones; when I wished to rise a Warrior's hand on my shoulder prevented me. Then another Warrior, with his two hands, thrust my hooded head to the sandal of one of my unseen tormentors; I heard her laugh; then my head was jerked up and thrust down again, to the sandal of another; I heard her laugh.

"You have had your sport," said Philemon. "Be gone, Slaves."

I heard the two girls laugh and dart away.

I was conscious of a crowd about me, not that I was the center of it, but that many men, and some women, were passing about me, probably on the way into the Curulean; there was much bustle, some shouting, much talking and moving. Most were doubtless on their way to the ticket booths, for there is a small charge to enter the Curulean; the fee, though minimal, helps to defray the expenses of the market, most of which are met by commissions on sales transacted on its premises; the fee also tends to some extent, but I suspect not greatly, to discourage attendance at the market by the merely curious or the indigent.

I heard my neck chain being unbolted from the back of the wagon. When it was free I was jerked to my feet and, stumbling in the midst of my guards, was led from the street, around the back of the building, where we entered through a small, private gate. Within, the hood was, to my satisfaction, removed; when the large wad of soured leather was removed from my mouth I threw up against one wall; the guards laughed and struck me; the lights, lamps, though they were feeble, seemed very bright, and ringed with many colors; the hood had been dark and hot and wet, stiffling; now even the close, humid air of the Curulean seemed welcome and cold. My wrists pulled futilely against the circles of steel that confined them; I felt the point of a short sword in my back.

"This way," said Philemon.

We began to walk down a long, slowly bending passageway. I had seen the Curulean from the outside before, but I had never been inside. From the outside it resembles several tiers of disks, surrounded by a circling portico with lofty, fluted columns; the predominant colors are blue and yellow, the traditional colors or the Gorean slaver; around the outside there are large numbers of well-wrought mosaics set in the walls, and on the floor of the circling portico; various scenes, stories and events are depicted, primarily having to do with, as would be expected, the trade of the Slaver, and his merchandise; there are hunting scenes, for example, and those of capture, enslavement, training, the sale, the dance, submission, and so on.

One striking set of mosaics details a slave raid from its initial planning phases through the successful return of the Slavers, on tarnback, to Ar with their stunning victims; another picks up this story from the registration and training of prizes to the block of the Curulean itself; another records the theoretical history of certain of these prizes, fortunate enough to be sold to men of Ar, who find eventual rapture in the arms of their masters, of Ar naturally. There is another set of interesting mosaics, each portraying a chained beauty, identified as being of a given city, kneeling before a Warrior, identified as being of Ar.

The men of Ar, like those of most other Gorean cities, regard themselves as being the best and finest on Gor, and the women of other cities as being worthy of being only the slave girls of such men. I would suppose that the Slavers, many of them sophisticated, rather cosmopolitan men, who come to Ar from many distant cities, must find such mosaics delightful; I am sure they have seen similar representations in their own cities, only there it is perhaps a wench of Ar who kneels, frightened, obedient, at the feet of one of their own warriors.

How seriously the men of Gor understand these representations depends doubtless on the man; but even those who, upon reflection, laugh at them, I have found, do generally regard the women of other cities rather differently than they regard their own, thinking of them almost automatically, particularly if of a hostile city, in terms of slave steel and silk; women on Gor, like gold and weapons, tend to be categorized as spoils. Outside the Curulean also, on sale days, actual slave girls are exhibited, some in suspended plastic cages fastened to the roof of the portico, others in a tier of cages lining the interior wall of the portico; these are not, however, the exposition cages within the Curulean; they are merely, so to speak, advertisements and attractions to lure customers; on the other hand, of course, such displays, along with many others, will be offered for sale.

Now, following Philemon, and surrounded by guards, one of whom held my heavy leash, we passed by the heavy, barred gate in the back of the Curulean, through which deliveries are made; some days ago Elizabeth, and Virginia and Phyllis, would have entered through that gate. We passed tables on one side, the rooms where medical examinations could be held; there were also facilities for washing prisoners; here and there I saw the office of a market official; there were also rooms where I saw silks, cosmetics, vials of perfumes, chains and such.

The sale at the Curulean is carefully planned, and the lots prepared and scheduled with much attention to such matters as variety and the attention of the buyers; for example, two consecutive lots are not likely to wear the same first silks upon ascending the block, yet each girl, given her complexion and hair color, must be attractively silked; similarly, the adornments initially worn must be apt and dissimilar; and further, of course, the merchandise itself must have great variety in its presentation; for example, women of the same general type and hair color seldom follow one another on the block. Cosmetics and their utilization present further problems. The sale of women, like that of any other merchandise, can be a difficult and time-consuming business, calling optimally for good judgment, experience and imagination.

I saw no merchandise in my passage through the rear halls of the Curulean; the girls are generally kept, prior to their sale, in holding cells, lit by energy bulbs, beneath the ground level; soon, however, I was passing by the exposition cages, which are accessible to the public; these cages were now empty; they are used, from the tenth to the fourteenth Ahn of a given day, to display the goods that will be sold that evening; access to the exposition cage area is free to the public prior to the sale, but, after the fourteenth Ahn, the Curulean is cleared and made ready for the evening's work; after that time a citizen must pay to enter the market; the cells themselves, and the corridors on each side surrounding them, are carpeted; the bars are set rather widely; inside the cells there are cushions and silks; on each cell there is a lot number and its date of sale; in the cells the girls are exhibited unclothed; moreover, they must be shown precisely as they are, absolutely without makeup; the only exception to this, interestingly, is that perfume is permitted; even the slave collars are removed, lest they be used to conceal a scar or blemish; the girl is simply washed, brushed and combed, and perfumed, and turned into the cage where, at the prospective bidder's pleasure, she may be examined; she is also expected, upon command, to walk, to assume postures, or otherwise to present the properties of her beauty for discernment and comparison; as Elizabeth had once said to me, it is sometimes difficult to make an assessment from the high tiers; on the block, of course, the girl is under the command of the auctioneer; moreover, on the block, she will customarily be made up; if the bidder does not recall that a particularly dazzling girl on the block was actually rather less dazzling in the exhibition cage, that is the responsibility of the bidder and not of the house; I suspect that, in the excitement of the sale, and in the marvelous presentation on the block of the Slaver's wares, the more careful, more dispassionate, assessments of the exhibition cages are often forgotten.

I supposed that now Elizabeth, and Virginia and Phyllis, would be in the holding cells beneath the ground level, perhaps being fed, some two or three Ahn prior to the sale; later they would be moved, with others, to the tunnel of ready cells, which leads to the block; there they would be adorned, made up and silked; each of these cells gives access to the one on its left and right; as the sale begins the lots move through the cells, one by one, until reaching that which opens at the foot of the block; as the lots move through the cells other lots are summoned from the holding cells and prepared for sale, these lots then moving through the tunnel of ready cells as did those before them.

Here in the area of the exhibition cages there were various citizens of Ar milling about, some meeting their friends, before taking their seats in the tiers; some seats in the tiers, the better ones, are reserved by number, but many are simply available on a first-come-first-served basis; those citizens wandering about, I gathered, had reserved seats.

Philemon, I and the guards emerged from the exposition area to the interior of the sales amphitheater; the entire house was now lit by energy bulbs; later, the block alone would be illuminated; the seats rose in tier after tier, largely circling the block, though a passage lay open behind the block; there were exits from the amphitheater available on several of the levels of tiers; certain specially favored portions of the tiers were boxed, seating areas reserved for important clients of the Curulean, often important Slavers from distant cities; the blue and yellow of the Slavers' was much in evidence in the amphitheater, worked into intricate patterns of fantastic designs, but the background color of the amphitheater was a rich, deep red; the block itself, lying in the pit of the amphitheater, was perhaps seven or eight feet in height, round, and with a diameter of some twenty feet; it was doubtless incredibly heavy, being formed of huge beams, shaped and fitted together with long wooden pegs; it was of simple wood, plain and unvarnished; the broad, heavy stairs, without banisters, leading to its height were shining and concave, polished, shaped and worn smooth by the bare feet of countless wenches who had climbed them; the surface of the block itself was similarly worn smooth and slightly concave; its broad surface had now been sprinkled, as is traditional, with sawdust; it is a Gorean custom that the girl, no matter how richly silked she may be when she ascends the block, must from the very first feel the wood with her feet.

"This way," said Philemon.

Philemon led the way to the box of Cernus, the largest and most impressive in the amphitheater, shielded on both sides and the back from the rest of the boxes and seats by heavy wooden screens; there, on a marble dais on which sat a low, throne-like chair of marble, I was forced to kneel. My throat chain was then locked to a heavy ring set in the side of the chair.

I had seen that many of the seats in the higher tiers, those not reserved, had already been filled with citizens, many of whom were doubtless prospective buyers. This was surprising because the hour was still early; I supposed the crowd this night would be unusually large, even for the fourth night of the Love Feast; none of the citizens had paid much attention to my being brought under guard to the box of Cernus; he was Ubar; it is not unusual on Gor for a powerful victor to force his enemy to witness the sale of his own women, before he is either sold or slain himself.

Philemon looked at me with his narrow ferret eyes and smiled. He pursed his thin, sour mouth.

"Cernus will not arrive until the sales begin," said he, "so we have something of a wait."

I said nothing.

"Hood him," said Philemon.

I struggled but the huge wad of soured leather was thrust again in my mouth and the heavy hood, with its thick layers of leather, drawn over my head and locked.

Hooded, my wrists locked in steel, my throat chained to the chair of my enemy, I knelt for perhaps two Ahn. During this time I was conscious of noise, the movement of men, the filling of the amphitheater. I wondered if Elizabeth, and Virginia and Phyllis, were yet in the ready cells, being prepared; I judged it unlikely, for they would probably be sold late, and would not be prepared until the sales were in progress; the last touches of their makeup might not even be made until minutes before they ascended the block. I felt rage and sorrow, rage at the twisting of events, the brilliance of my enemies, my own failures, and sorrow for Elizabeth, and the other girls; for Elizabeth in particular my heart cried out, for her hopes would be so cruelly dashed; she might not even discover that she had been tricked and used, until she found herself, to her horror, beneath the lash of a master to whom she would be only another slave.