John Norman - Rogue of Gor

I stepped away to one side and stopped before a blanket spread out on the boards. On the blanket, spread out, were dozens of pins and brooches, clasps and buckles, rings and necklaces, and bracelets and earrings, and bangles and armlets, and body chains. A pleasant-looking fellow in a woolen tunic sat cross-legged behind the blanket.

“Buy jewelry here,” said he. “It is cheap and attractive. Bedeck your slaves.”

“See, Master?” asked a girl kneeling at his side, collared, nude, lifting her arms. She was almost covered with jewelry. About her throat alone there must have been twenty necklaces. She lifted the necklaces, causing them to rustle and shimmer, holding them forth to me in her small hands. Then she extended her right arm that I might see the armlets, bracelets and rings which scarcely permitted her flesh to be seen.

“Buy some for your slave,” said the man. “Here,” said he, lifting a necklace from the blanket. “This was taken from a free woman, now scrubbing stones in the plaza of Iphicrates.”

“I do not have a slave,” I said.

“I will sell you this one,” said he, indicating the display slave at his side, “for a silver tarsk.”

“Buy me, Master,” she laughed. “I am pretty. I work hard. I can well please a man in the furs.”

“It is true,” smiled the fellow.

“Surely women can be purchased more cheaply in Victoria than a silver tarsk,” I smiled.

“True,” grinned the fellow. I saw that he had not wished, truly, to sell her.

“You mentioned,” I said, “that this necklace had been taken from a free woman.”

“By a pirate,” he said.

“You speak of this openly,” I observed.

“This is Victoria,” said he.

“May I inquire as to what crew, it was of which that pirate was a member?” I asked.

“Of that of Polyclitus,” said he. “Their stronghold is near Turmus.”

“Doubtless they also harry the trade routes circumventing the delta of the Vosk?” I asked.

“Occasionally,” he said. “Indeed, it was there that they picked up this pretty little plum.” He indicated the girl at his side. “Would you believe that she was once the daughter of a rich merchant?” he asked.

“It seems incredible,” I said.

“He has trained me well to the collar,” she purred, kissing at his arm.

“It can be done with any woman,” he said.

“Are you familiar with a pirate named Kliomenes?” I asked. I hoped my voice did not betray undue interest.

“He is bad fellow,” said the man. “He is a lieutenant to Policrates.”

“Do you know if he is now in Victoria?” I asked.

“Yes,” said the man. “He has come to Victoria to sell goods and slaves.”

“Where are these to be sold?” I asked.

“The goods have already been sold,” said the man, “at the merchant wharves.”

“And the slaves?” I asked.

“They are to be sold tonight,” said he, “at the sales barn of Lysander.”

“I shall take this body chain,” I said to the man, indicating one of the body chains on the blanket.

“But I thought you had no slave?” he asked.

“I would still like to thank you, somehow,” I said. “You have been very helpful.”

“It is a tarsk bit,” he said.

The loop of the body chain was some five feet in length. It was made to loop the throat of a woman several times, or, by alternative windings, to bedeck her body in a variety of fashions. The chain was not heavy, but, too, it was not light. It had a solid heft in one’s hand. It was closely meshed and strong. It could be used, if a man wished, and perfectly, for purposes of slave security. It was decorated sensuously with colorful wooden beads, semiprecious stones and bits of leather. Detachable, but now attached to the chain at one point were two sets of clips, one of snap clips and one of lock clips. It is by means of these clips that the chain can be transformed from a simple piece of slave jewelry into a sturdy and effective device of slave restraint.

I put down the tarsk bit, and the man took it, and slipped it into his pouch.

“Do not give that to a free woman,” he grinned.

“It is pretty,” I said. I looped it several times, and put it in my pouch.

“It is a body chain,” he said.

“It is still pretty,” I said. I wondered why I had bought it. It was pretty, surely. Perhaps that was why I had bought it.

“When I was free,” said the girl, “I could not wear such things.”

“They are not for free women,” said the man.

“No, Master,” she said, quickly. “But now,” she said; “I may, with my master’s permission, make myself as beautiful and exciting as I can.”

“It is I who can decide what it is which you can wear,” he said.

“Yes, Master,” she smiled, “and even if I am permitted to wear anything at all.”

“And do not forget it,” he said.

“No, Master,” she said.

“Tonight,” I said, “Kliomenes puts his wares upon the block at the sales barn of Lysander.”

“Yes,” said the man.

“I thank you,” I said, “and I wish you well.”

“I, too, wish you well,” said he.

I then took my way up a narrow street leading into Victoria.

“Good hunting in the slave market!” called the man after me.

“Thank you,” I said. I smiled to myself. Then I continued on my way, wondering why I had purchased so strange an item as a body chain, a form of jewelry obviously designed for the body of a female slave.

“Are there any more challengers?” I asked, wiping the sweat and sand from my face with my forearm.

I had tallied my resources, prior to coming to the tavern of Tasdron, off the avenue of Lycurgus, and found them to amount to only seventy copper tarsks, including five tarsks which I had happily, and unexpectedly, received, the captain being a good fellow, for acting as an oarsman from Fina to the vicinity of Victoria. I did not know how much a slave might go for in the market of Lysander, but I wished to have enough to be confident that I could bid realistically and effectively on one item of merchandise, should it be offered to the public.

I spit down into the sand. I rubbed my hands on my thighs.

I had fought seven fellows, and finished them off with a dispatch which, it seemed to me, might have pleased even Kenneth and Barus, my former mentors in such matters. I might have taken more time and enticed more challengers to face me but I wished to be at the market of Lysander when the bidding began. As it was I was not displeased. I had managed to accumulate two silver tarsks and some sixteen copper tarsks. In Victoria I was confident I would encounter no guardsmen who, at the behest of honest folk, might encourage me to take my leave at an early convenience.

“Are there any more challengers?” I inquired.

The room was quiet. I bent down to a small table near the sand to gather in my winnings.

“A silver tarsk,” said a voice, not a pleasant one.

I straightened up.

A fellow was now standing, some fifty feet across the room. I had seen the table there earlier. About it had sat some seven or eight fellows, unshaven, dour chaps. Several of them were scarred. Two wore earrings. More than one wore a handkerchief knotted about his head, in the manner of some oarsmen, that their heads be protected from the sun. All were armed.

“Kind Sirs, no!” called out Tasdron, the tavern’s proprietor.

There was a sudden sound, that of a short metal blade slipping from a sheath.

“A silver tarsk,” said the fellow again, holding the drawn blade. Goreans, I knew, seldom drew steel unless they intended to make use of it.