"They are beautiful," said Glyco, the merchant of Port Cos to whom we owed so much. It was he who, in effect, had organized the resistance of the river towns to the pirates, and had had the good sense and fortune to recruit the redoubtable Callimachus of Port Cos as his field commander, a man without whose military skills and reputation on the river our projects might have been doomed to failure.
"Thank you," I said.
I looked about the table. Seven men, including myself, were present, Glyco, high merchant of Port Cos; Tasdron, Administrator of Victoria; Aemilianus, leader of the naval forces of Ar upon the Vosk; Calliodorus, captain of the _Tais_; and my friends, Callimachus and Miles of Vonda, who had brought with him his slave, Florence. Earlier, as a portion of our entertainment, she had played on the lyre, and sung for us. She had been warmly applauded, which, I think, pleased muchly both the shy slave and her master. Miles of Vonda had had her trained in these skills. As a free woman she had been, in effect, without accomplishments. Now she had additional ways in which to please her master. She now knelt behind her master. She wore a yellow tunic, and her collar.
I watched Shirley, the blond, voluptuous slave whom I had taken from Reginald, of the _Tamira_, in the battle on the river. She was one of three women whom I had had following our victory over the pirates, the other two being Lola and the former Miss Henderson. For this night Lola, who was first girl, had dressed Shirley much like the other slave, save that the gauze of Shirley's garment was yellow.
For the last few days I had been boarding Shirley at a kennel in Victoria, but I had had her brought home this evening that she might help with the serving, and for another reason. She, kneeling, poured wine from a narrow, long-spouted silver vessel into the cup of Aemilianus, of Ar's Station. At the kennel, incidentally, I had arranged for Shirley to receive the whipping which had been due to her for having lifted her head without permission on the deck of the _Tina_. Gorean masters seldom forget such details, and their girls know it. This helps in the maintenance of their discipline.
Lola was in the kitchen, supervising the food and service. She was not to be permitted to present herself until later, and then she would do so in the manner of my choosing. She knew only that she was in some way to be involved in my entertainment.
I again turned my attention to the dancers. Their movements were graceful and decorous. One would scarcely know that they were slaves, save, of course, that they wore collars and danced their beauty for men. Their movements were lovely, and refined. Free women might even have been present. This was suitable for the type of party which I had planned. This was not the type of party at which, say, the women of the enemy are forced to dance naked and, afterwards, are to be allotted to the victors as slaves, according to the whim of the commander or according to the fall of the dice.
Similarly it was not one of those parties in which a given number of slaves must dance within a circle of free men, of equal number, with whips, stripping themselves to the strokes of the whips and then dancing towards the men. The man who does not accept the woman whips her back from him; similarly the woman who does not dance toward a man is whipped until she does. It is common in this form of dance to make each woman, dancing to each man, go about the circle at least five times. In this way the men have a chance to inspect the women, and consider which ones interest them. Needless to say, it is not long before the women are striving desperately to please the men. Only when she has sufficiently pleased a man is she permitted to crawl from the dancing circle to the cushions of her master for the Ahn.
The lead dancer reminded me somewhat of the slave, Melpomene, who had once been the Lady Melpomene, of Vonda. She was similarly figured to Melpomene; similarly, she had the same dark hair, complexion and high cheekbones as Melpomene. She was not Melpomene, however. I smiled to myself. I doubted that Melpomene, whose slave heat had been ignited, could have managed to dance in such a refined fashion before men. Even had she striven to do so I think that small expressions and subtle movements would have betrayed her, to the detriment of the type of dance which she was supposed to be performing. I regarded the dancers.
I supposed that if, at some time in the future, their passions were to be ignited, then they, too, would be ruined for this particular type of dance. I was fortunate, thus, to have been able to obtain them when I did. Too, of course, doubtless their master would keep a close eye on them, at least until he had managed to get a good price for them. After that, what would it be to him if they learned, in the arms of a strong master, what it was to be a full slave.
I wondered where Melpomene was now. Having seen her dance I had little doubt but what she would be being used as a dancer. It takes a long time, of course, for a woman to become a good dancer. She might spend years in low taverns, or as a carnival dancer, or even as a street dancer, for provocation and use, on her leash, before her skills develop to a point at which she is good enough, as it is said, "to be permitted to dance before a Ubar."
"More, Master?" inquired the slave in bluish gauze, in the gleaming collar, kneeling behind me and to my left.
"Yes," I said.
With a serving prong she placed narrow strips of roast bosk and fried sul on my plate.
"Enough, Girl," I said.
"Yes, Master," she said.
There were seven musicians, who furnished the music for the dancers, a czehar player, their leader, two kalika players, three flutists and a kaska player. Tasdron kindly had brought these fellows from his tavern. Too, with him he had brought a girl, the former Earth girl, Peggy, who was one of his slaves. She was in a brief, white tunic, and collar. She hovered in his vicinity, waiting upon him. I noted, however, that she could hardly take her eyes from the mighty Callimachus. Tasdron and I had, together, agreed on the pertinence of her presence at the feast.
There was then a swirl of music and the dancers had finished. We well applauded them. They had been superb. They stood before us in their blue silk and golden collars, their heads down. Then, smiling, to another swirl of music, they turned and hurried from the room, going to the kitchen, where their master would be waiting for them. They were barefoot. There were golden bangles on the left ankle of each.
In the kitchen they would be stripped of their costumes, which were not to be soiled. They would then kneel and be fed by hand. When they were finished they would be put naked in slave cloaks and, fastened together in throat coffle, conducted back to their holding cages near the spice wharf. Tomorrow, at noon, on the same ship on which their master had booked passage, they were to be shipped to Port Cos, and from thence, via Turmus, eventually to the island of Cos, in some city of which, probably Telnus, they would be put up for sale. The musicians now played unobtrusively in the background.
"She is a pretty one," said Glyco, indicating the slave in bluish gauze, barefoot and bare-armed, who was deferentially serving us. She put down her head, blushing. "You have been commended," I said to her. "Thank you, Master," she said to Glyco, kneeling, head down. "A girl is grateful, if she has been found pleasing by a free man."
"What is her name?" asked Glyco. "I have not yet given her a name," I said. "I see," said Glyco. "You may continue your serving," I said to the girl. "Yes, Master," she said.
"I propose a toast," said Aemilianus, rising.
"A toast," we called. Shirley hurried about, making sure there was wine in the goblets. Callimachus drank water, but he permitted a drop of wine to mix in the water, that the ceremony of the toast might be one in which he fully shared. Wine, incidentally, is often mixed with water in Gorean homes. This is primarily because of the potency of many Gorean wines. The wines I was serving, however, were such that, sensibly, they could be served undiluted. An alternative with the potent wines is to serve very small amounts of them. We stood. The musicians stopped playing.