Assassin of Gor (44 page)

The auctioneer, as though in the throes of misery, almost threw the poor girl back down the stairs of the block, kicking her bit of dark blanket angrily after her.

He glared at the crowd. "I told you!" he cried. "Barbarians are nothing!"

The auctioneer conferred with a market official, who kept lists of lot numbers and confirmed the bids and final sale with the buyers or their agents at the side of the block. The auctioneer looked dejected when he returned to the center of the block.

"Forgive me, Brothers and Sisters of my City, Glorious Ar," he begged, "for I must bring yet more barbarians before you."

The crowd, or much of it, stormed to its feet. I even heard some angry pounding on the wooden screens surrounding the box of Cernus. But Cernus only smiled. They screamed imprecations on the auctioneer, on the Curulean, even some of the braver ones, anonymous in the pressing throng, on the House of Cernus itself.

"Observe closely," said Cernus to me.

Again I did not deign to respond to the Slaver, now Ubar of Ar.

Suddenly the lights of the amphitheater went out, plunging that great, crowded room into darkness. There were shouts of surprise from the crowd, some screams of startled women. Then, after a moment, the great block, and that alone, was again illuminated with a blaze of light. The crowd shouted its pleasure.

It was as though the sales were beginning again, and now truly for the first time.

The auctioneer sprang to the block and, from the darkness at the foot of the steps, was hurled a chain leash, and then two more. He held them for a moment and then, keeping them taut, stepped back. He met resistance. Below, in the darkness, there came the sudden, startling, savage report of a slave whip, snapped three times.

Then, regally, in black cloaks, with hoods, three women, two girls and their leader, climbed the stairs to the block, backs straight, heads high, their features concealed in the folds of the hood. Each of them had her wrists braceleted before her body, and each slave chain led to the slave bracelets of the one of the girls; the lead girl, probably Elizabeth, was on a somewhat shorter chain than the two behind her, one on each side, doubtless Virginia and Phyllis. Their black cloaks were rather like ponchos with hoods, save that there were slits through which their arms emerged. The length of the cloak, which was full and flowing, fell to their ankles. Their feet, of course, were bare. They stood near the center of the block, their leashes in the hands of the auctioneer.

"These are three barbarians, two White Silk, one Red Silk," called the auctioneer, "all from the House of Cernus, whom it is our hope you will find pleasing."

"Are they trained?" called a voice.

"They are so certified," responded the auctioneer. He then summoned three whip slaves to the block, and each held the chain of one of the girls.

At the auctioneer's command the slaves led the girls about the block, and then brought them again to its shining, shallowly concave center.

"What am I offered?" called the auctioneer.

There was silence.

"Come now, brothers and sisters of Glorious Ar, citizens and gentle buyers of Glorious Ar, and friends of Ar and hers, what am I offered for these three barbarians?"

There was a bid of three gold pieces from the auditorium, probably intended to do little more than initiate the bidding.

"I hear three," called the auctioneer, "do I hear four?" As he said this, he moved to one of the girls and threw back her hood. It was Virginia. Her head was back, and she looked disdainful. She wore the cosmetics of a Pleasure Slave, applied exquisitely. Her hair, glistening, fell to her shoulders. Her lips were red with slave rouge.

"Eight gold pieces!" I heard cry from the crowd.

"What of ten?" asked the auctioneer.

"Ten!" I heard cry.

The auctioneer then threw back the hood of the second girl, Phyllis.

She seemed coldly furious. The crowd gasped. The cosmetics enhanced and heightened the drama of her great natural beauty, but with an insolent and deliberate coarseness that was a gauntlet thrown before the blood of men.

"Twenty gold pieces!" I heard cry. "Twenty-five!" I heard from another area.

Phyllis tossed her head and looked away, over the heads of the crowd, nothing but contempt on her face.

"What of thirty?" called the auctioneer.

"Forty!" I heard cry.

The auctioneer laughed and approached the third girl.

Cernus leaned over the arm of his chair, toward me. "I wonder," he said, "how she will feel when she learns she has been truly sold?"

"Put a sword in my hand," said I, "and face me!"

Cernus laughed and turned his attention again to the block.

As the Auctioneer reached for the hood of the third girl, she turned away and suddenly, though chained by the wrists, darted toward the stairs; the slack in the chain was taken up in her flight and, on the second or third stair down, she was spun about and thrown to the steps, half on them, half on the block. The whip slave who held her chain then hauled her cruelly, on her stomach, and then on her back, to the center of the block. There the whip slave stepped on the chain on the chain fastened to her slave bracelets about six inches from the bracelets, pinning her wrists to the block. The auctioneer, with his foot on her belly, held her in place.

"Shall we have a look at this one?" the auctioneer inquired of the crowd.

There were eager shouts.

I was angry. I knew that, in effect, this was a performance, each detail planned expertly, choreographed and rehearsed in the House of Cernus.

Cernus chuckled.

The crowd shouted eagerly to see the rebellious girl.

The auctioneer thrust his hand beneath the hood and, with his fist in her hair, drew her to her knees before the buyers. Then he brushed back her hood.

The light over the block took the glint of the tiny, fine nose ring in the nose of Elizabeth Cardwell.

The crowd gasped.

How startling, and incredibly beautiful she was!

She seemed fine and savage, as vital and dangerous and beautiful as the she-larl. She was a woman who could well have stood among the most marvelous of Gor.

She wore the cosmetics of the slave girl.

There was silence.

It was a tribute in its way, the honoring by way of awe, this magnificent captive female, to be sold.

The silence was broken by a bid. "One hundred gold pieces," spoken by a Slaver who wore the insignia of Tor, some feet from the box of Cernus.

"A hundred and twenty," said another, soberly, matter of factly, this man, too, a professional Slaver, he wearing on his left shoulder the sign of Tyros.

The three girls then stood rather together, Elizabeth somewhat forward, the other two a bit behind and flanking her; then they were led on their chains again about the block.

The bids increased to a hundred and forty gold pieces. Then the girls were spaced on the block, Elizabeth toward the front and middle, and Virginia and Phyllis on alternate sides. The chains were then removed from their slave bracelets and the three whip slaves retired. The auctioneer then, with his key, removed the left slave bracelet from the wrist of each, permitting it to dangle from the right wrist.

He then removed the black cloak from Virginia, who stood before us in the brief, sleeveless yellow livery, slashed to the belt, of a slave girl.

There were cries of approval.

He then drew the cloak from Phyllis, who was attired as was Virginia.

The crowd cried out with enthusiasm.

He then went to Elizabeth and removed her cloak also.

The crowd roared with pleasure.

Elizabeth had been clad in the brief leather of a Tuchuk wagon girl, simple, rough, sleeveless, the short skirt on the left side slit to the belt, so that the saddle of the kaiila, mount of the Wagon Peoples, would be permitted her.

"Two hundred gold pieces," said a merchant from Cos.

"Two hundred and fifteen," called out a high officer in the cavalry of Ar.

Again the girls were commanded to walk about the block, and they did so, proudly, irritably, as though wishing to express only contempt for what they seemed to regard as the rabble about them. When they had finished, Virginia now stood toward the center, with Phyllis behind her and to her left, and Elizabeth behind her and to her right. The three whip slaves then again climbed to the block. By this time the bids had increased to two hundred and forty. There were some cries of protest, perhaps from less-affluent bidders, that the girls were not of High Caste.

The auctioneer then motioned to the whip slave who stood behind Virginia. He drew her left wrist behind her back and snapped it into the slave bracelet, thus confining both wrists behind her. Then he, pulling at the shoulders of her livery, jerked it down to her waist. This pleased the crowd. There was a bid of two hundred and fifty then for the lot. The auctioneer then signaled the whip slaves and the girls rotated their position, bringing Phyllis to the front of the block. There, she, like Virginia, was similarly secured and revealed. The bids increased to two hundred and seventy-five gold pieces. Then the girls rotated again and this time Elizabeth stood at the center of the block.

"It appears," said the auctioneer, "that this was once a wench of Tuchuks."

The crowd grunted its approval. The Tuchuks, one of the distant Wagon Peoples, tend to be, to those of northern Gor, a people of mystery and intrigue; to those of the southern plains, of course, they tend to be little more than efficient, fierce and dreaded foes.

"Can you guess," asked the auctioneer, "which of the three slaves is Red Silk?"

The crowd roared with amusement.

"Doubtless," called the auctioneer, "her Tuchuk master used her well."

The crowd laughed.

At this point, savagely, Elizabeth spat into the face of the auctioneer.

The crowd screamed with amusement, but the auctioneer did not seem much pleased. Angrily, he motioned back the whip slave, who stood behind the girl, and then he himself threw her hands cruelly behind her back and snapped shut the slave bracelets, thus himself confining her.

"You have pleased ignorant herders," he said. "Now, we shall see if you can please the men of Ar."

So saying, he himself stripped her to the waist before the crowd.

Elizabeth was beautiful. The placement of her wrists, of course, like that of the other girls was not accident. It is done so that there be no impediment to the vision of the buyers.

I found I wanted to take her in my arms and kiss the slave rouge from her mouth. I suppose my response were not much different from those of other men in the crowd.

"Three hundred gold pieces!" called a rich man of Ar.

The crowd shouted its approval of the bid.

"Three hundred and five," said the professional Slaver from Tor.

"Three hundred and ten!" announced the Slaver who wore upon his shoulder the sign of Tyros.

The auctioneer looked into the crowd. "Is not Samos," he asked, "First Slaver of Port Kar with us this evening?"

All eyes turned to one of the boxes near the front of the block.

There, slumped in a marble chair, was an indolent figure, yet indolent as is the satisfied beast of prey. About his left shoulder he wore the knotted ropes of Port Kar; his garment was simple, dark, closely woven; the hood was thrown back revealing a broad, wide head, close-cropped white hair; the face was red from windburn and salt; it was wrinkled and lined, cracked like leather; in his ears there were two small golden rings; in him I sensed power, experience, intelligence, cruelty; I felt in him the presence of the carnivore, at the moment not inclined to hunt, or kill.

"He is," said the man.

This Slaver had not yet made a bid.

"Show me the women," said Samos.

The crowd shouted with pleasure.

The auctioneer bowed low to Samos, First Slaver of Port Kar.

Almost instantly, by the whip slaves, the three barbarian beauties from the House of Cernus were revealed to the buyers of Ar.

The crowd rose to its feet shouting and stamping, drowning out what bids might have been made.

How beautiful were the three women, the slaves.

When the tumult subsided, the voice of Samos was heard again.

"Remove the bracelets."

This was done and the whip slaves retired, taking with them the bracelets which had confined the lovely commodities that now graced the block of Ar.

The crowd shouted and roared, and stamped its feet.

The girls stood in the light, lifting their heads to the crowd, nude and proud on the block, in the wild shouting and stamping and crying out, and knew themselves beautiful and prized. How marvelous and female they seemed, the three slaves, in that moment.

There were perhaps dozens of bids that were shouted forth and lost in the acclaim of the crowd. I managed to hear one bid for four hundred pieces of gold. At last, once again the crowd subsided.