Explorers of Gor (19 page)

“If he wishes,” said Uchafu, “he could enter and burn Schendi.”

“Barbarians from the interior?” I asked.

“Bila Huruma has an army at his command, organized, trained, disciplined, effective,” said Uchafu. “He manages a Ubarate, with districts and governors, with courts and spies and messengers.”

“I did not know anything of this breadth and power existed in the south,” I said.

“It is a great Ubarate,” said Uchafu, “but it is little known for it is of the interior.”

I said nothing.

“Schendi,” said he, “is like a flower at the feet of a kailiauk.”

“You have then acceded to his request for men?” I said.

“Yes,” said Uchafu.

“I am sorry,” I said.

Uchafu shrugged. “But do not concern yourself with our troubles,” he said, “for you are not of Schendi.” He then turned about. “Have you seen the red-headed girl?” he asked. “She is very nice.”

“Yes,” I said, “I have seen her.” I looked about. “There is a blond-haired girl over there,” I said, indicating the girl in the blindfold, kneeling chained, crowded together with other girls, under one of the small, thatched roofs, on its poles. She was dirty. Her knees were in the mud. Her left ankle, like that of the other girls, was fastened in an ankle ring. She, like the others, was, by the loop of chain and lock, run through the chain ring on the ankle ring, attached to the central chain of her shelter, that strung between the two heavy posts, one at each end of the shelter. She, like the others, was naked. Her small hands, her wrists secured in slave bracelets, by means of a locked chain snug at her waist, were held at her belly. She could not, then, reach the blindfold. It was of black cloth. It covered most of the upper part of her head.

“Let me show you these two,” said Uchafu, leading me away from the girl in the blindfold. She was the only one blindfolded in the market. Uchafu had told me, earlier, that it was to keep her quiet.

“What of these?” asked Uchafu.

Yesterday, after I had left the blond-haired barbarian at the wharf, I had taken lodging at the Cove of Schendi, a rooming house in the vicinity of wharf ten which caters to foreign sailors. The rooms were small but adequate, with a mattress, spread upon the floor a sea chest at one side of the room; a low table; a tharlarion oil lamp; a bowl and pitcher of water; and, at the foot of the mattress, a stout slave ring. I threw my sea bag beside the sea chest, braceleted Sasi’s hands before her body about the ring, left the room, locked the door, dropped the key in my pouch and made my way downstairs, to return inconspicuously to the vicinity of wharf eight, where the Palms of Schendi was disembarking her cargo. I did not have long to wait. Uchafu himself had soon appeared and, meeting with Ulafi, completed the brief transaction which purchased him the blond-haired barbarian. Shoka removed the shipping collar of the Palms of Schendi from her neck. Uchafu then snapped his own collar on her. Shoka then freed her wrists of the wrist rings of the sirik and Uchafu locked a waist chain on her and then, about this chain, running the linkage of the bracelets behind it, braceleted her hands at her belly. Uchafu then, with the black cloth, blindfolded her, and snapped a lock leash about her collar. Shoka then removed the sink collar from her, and the ankle rings, freeing her of the silk. He gathered up the sink and he took, too, unlocking it, the chain and padlock which had held her, by the silk, at the wharf ring. He then returned to the Palms of Schendi. Uchafu, by the leash, pulled the braceleted, blindfolded girl to her feet, and pulled her after him, leading her from the wharf. I had followed them. Uchafu, as it turned out, had not taken a direct route to his market. I think the girl, even if she had known the streets of Schendi, would have been utterly confused as to her direction or whereabouts.

“These are nice,” said Uchafu, indicating a pair of white blonds. “These are sisters,” he said, “from Asperiche. You may buy them together, or separately, as you please.”

The blond-haired barbarian, as she knelt frightened, in the mud, with the other girls, still wore her blindfold, that which Uchafu had placed on her at wharf eight. She would have no idea of where she was. Uchafu undoubtedly, because of the prices involved, understood that she was of some importance. On the other hand, I do not think he understood the nature of that importance. Ulafi, I was sure, had not either. There was no blood that I could see on the interior of the barbarian’s thighs. Ulafi, too, I recalled, had not used her nor thrown her to his crew. This tended to confirm in my mind that they did not understand the nature of her importance. Perhaps a rich man, an eccentric of some sort, desired her. Perhaps he would not be pleased, or would not pay, if she were not delivered to him white silk. I smiled to myself. If Ulafi or Uchafu truly understood the nature of the girl’s importance, that it had nothing to do with her being red silk or white silk, she would doubtless, by now, have been richly and abundantly raped. More than a hundred times by now, I expected, had they but known, she would have thrashed and squirmed, gasping, held, in the arms of strong men, her slave beauty the helpless, lascivious wine on which mighty masters would slake the thirsts of their lust.

“What do you think of them?” Inquired Uchafu, indicating the two blond-haired sisters from Asperiche.

Both were blue-eyed. They crouched in the mud, chained, beneath the palm-thatched roof of the tiny shelter.

“What can you do?” I asked them.

They looked at one another, frightened. One whimpered. Uchafu angrily raised the heavy, knobbed stick he carried.

“Whatever Master desires,” said one of the girls.

“Whatever Master desires,” said the other girl, quickly.

“What of that one over there?” I asked, casually, indicating the blond-haired barbarian in a shelter some feet away, diagonally to my left.

“These are beauties,” said Uchafu, indicating the two sisters, the blonds from Asperiche. “Buy one or both,” he said.

But I had begun to walk toward the blond-haired barbarian. Uchafu hurried along behind me, and seized my sleeve, stopping me.

“No,” he said, “not her.”

“Why?” I asked, as though puzzled.

“She has already been sold,” he said.

“How much did you get?” I asked.

“Fifteen copper tarsks,” he said. He had put the price a bit high for this girl and this market. That was, I supposed, to discourage me. I recalled she had had an honest bid on her once at the market of Vart, once Publius Quintus of Ar, in Port Kar, a bid from the tavern keeper, Procopius, of forty copper tarsks. She had received this bid, of course, only after her unusual heat, for a new slave, had been made clear.

“I will give you sixteen,” I told him.

Uchafu looked annoyed. I did not permit myself to smile. I knew that he had not yet sold the girl, for she was still on his chain. He was waiting for his buyer. Further, I knew, from Ulafi, he would have paid two tarsks, of silver, for her. He would doubtless receive three or four silver tarsks from the awaited buyer. But then he smiled and shrugged. “Oh, misery, for a poor merchant,” said he. “I could have received sixteen for her and sold her for fifteen. Misery! But I cannot now renege upon my word, sadly enough, for I am a merchant of well-known integrity. Much as I would love to sell her to you for sixteen tarsks I must let her go to a previous buyer for fifteen. Such is occasionally the sad lot of one who has made the difficult choice, and will abide by it, of dealing straightforwardly and honestly with all men, whomsoever they may be.”

“I had not realized that integrity could be such a handicap,” I said.

“Ah, yes,” he moaned.

“But perhaps your reputation as a noble and honest merchant will yet in the long run redound to your profit as well as your honor.”

“Let us hope so,” he said.

“You are one of the most honest slavers I have ever met,” I said.

“My thanks, Master,” breathed he, bowing low.

“I wish you well,” said I.

“I wish you well,” said he.

I then left his market. I think then he realized that I had not bought a girl.

“We will have more in at the end of the week!” he called. “Come again!”

I waved to him, from the other side of the low board fence.

“Hurry! Hurry, clumsy slave!” cried the small, scarred man, crooked-backed, his right leg dragging behind him. He wore a dirty tunic; over it was a long, brown aba, torn and ragged. He was barefoot. A brown cloth, turbanlike, was twisted about his head. He seemed angry. His feet and legs, and those of the slave, were muddy and dirty, from the mud in the streets.

“Hurry!” he cried.

“Oh!” she cried, sobbing in the blindfold, driven before him, struck again by the long switch in his right hand.

“Oh! Oh!” she cried. “Please, don’t hit me again, Master!”

Then she cried out again, stumbling and weeping, before him, struck twice more.

I followed at a discreet distance. I had observed her sale by means of a glass of the builders, from a roof top near Uchafu’s market. I had then telescoped the glass and slipped it into my pouch. I had seen silver exchange hands. But I did not know precisely how many pieces had been paid, as the buyer’s back, as be turned, was then toward me.

“Hurry!” he cried. He struck her again.

“Yes, Master!” she cried.

He was dressed as a beggar, but I did not think him of that profession. Too, beggars do not buy slave girls, or openly buy them.

I was sure the man was an agent of Kurii.

He struck her again, and again she stumbled on before him. She still wore her blindfold, that black cloth covering most of the upper portion of her head. She had never seen, I knew, Uchafu’s market and she did not know where she was being driven. All she had seen of Schendi was, the harbor and wharf. Then she had been blindfolded. She stumbled on, miserably, before her herder. Her small hands were still secured at her belly, but now by binding fiber. Her wrists had been crossed and bound, and then the long end of the fiber had been taken about her body and tied again to her wrists. This way she could not, still, reach the blindfold, and her back was fully exposed, as was doubtless intended, for the stroke of the herding switch. Uchafu’s collar had been removed from her in the market and another collar had been snapped on her throat. I had not, of course, had a chance to read it.

“Please do not strike me any more, Master!” she begged, stumbling. “I am hurrying! I am hurrying!”

Then she stumbled against a free woman, who, in fury, screamed at her, and began to strike and kick at her.

She fell to her knees, and put her head down. “Forgive me, Mistress!” she begged. “Forgive me!”

The free woman, angrily, continued on her way.

“Get up!” snarled the herdsman.

The girl tried to get up but her foot slipped in the mud and she fell to her side.

Instantly the man was on her with the switch, lashing down at her. “Get up, you worthless white slut!” he cried.

She struggled to her feet. “Yes, Master! Yes, Master!” she wept.

“Hurry!” he cried. He struck her again.

“Which way?” she cried, disoriented. She looked about, blindly, her feet in the mud. “Oh! Oh!” she cried, richly struck, and then fell to her knees, sobbing, helpless. He pulled her to her feet by the left arm and thrust her ahead of him, down the street.

“Hurry!” he commanded. He struck her again.

“Yes, Master,” she sobbed, and, again, stumbled on before him, a blindfolded, herded slave girl.

I looked behind me occasionally, but I saw only the normal occupants and passers-by of the streets of Schendi. I wore the garb now of a leather worker. If inquiries had been made it would be recalled that he who had arrived in the Palms of Schendi had been, at least ostensibly, of the metal workers.

“In here, worthless slave,” said the man, and, taking the girl by the arm, thrust her through the doors of a paga tavern, the Golden Kailiauk.

He took her over beside a wall, across from the main door, and close to a small side door.

“Lie down here,” he told her.

She lay down on the wooden floor.

“On your side,” he said. “Pull your knees up under your chin.”

She then lay there, small, her knees drawn up.

He hurled his brown aba over her, covering her completely, and limped out, through the small side door.

“Does Master desire aught?” asked a black girl, kneeling before me, a paga slave of the establishment.

“Paga,” I said to her. She rose to her feet and went to the vat behind the counter. I sat down, cross-legged, behind a low table, from which vantage point I could see the girl lying on the floor, she covered with the beggar’s aba.

I assumed her herdsman had delivered her to this tavern, that she be picked up by someone else.

I nursed the paga, making it last.

But no one seemed to come for her.

I began to be apprehensive that perhaps some mistake had occurred. What if Ulafi had been mistaken about the girl. What if he had not, really, received two tarsks from Uchafu for her. What if the beggar had made a serious purchase of the girl on behalf of the tavern keeper? What if she were merely being delivered here to be trained as a mere paga girl? I glanced around. There was only one other white girl in the tavern, a dark-haired girl, collared, in yellow pleasure silk, she, too, apparently a paga slave, like the black girls, waiting on the tables. Perhaps the tavern keeper only wanted another white girl, to add variety for his clientele.

I looked at the blond-haired girl lying hidden under the aba. She did not dare to move.

But, no. I recalled clearly that silver had exchanged hands in her sale.

There was no mistake.

I must wait.

I ordered another cup of paga. I played a game of Kaissa with another guest of the tavern. The paga tasted a bit strange, but it was a local paga and there is variation in such pagas, generally a function of the brewer’s choice of herbs and grains. From time to time I glanced at the girl under the aba. I used the Telnus Defense on the fellow, a response to his Ubara’s Gambit, which I thought might be unknown in Schendi, as it had first been seen only last spring at the Fair of En’Kara, near the Sardar Mountains. He met it squarely, however, and I myself, no Centius of Cos, was soon involved in perplexing difficulties. I did manage, narrowly, to eke out a win in the endgame.