“Too high for her,” I said.
I knew she had been purchased from an outlaw, from Arn. Outlaws seldom command, from professional slaves, the prices which others might. The house, if one may so speak of the compound at Lydius, had probably not paid more than two tarsks for her.
“I will give you four tarsks,” I said.
“In Ar,” said the man, “ she would go for ten gold pieces.”
“We are not in Ar,” I pointed out.
“I hate you!” screamed Sheera. “I hate you! I hate you!”
“Her breasts,” I said, “ are a bit small, and her ankles and wrists are too thick,” “She is a beauty,” said the man.
We examined her, carefully. She turned her head to one side.
“She is a raw girl,” I said, “nor broken to a collar, untrained.”
“We must dip oars soon,” Rim said.
“That is true,” I agreed. I did not wish to miss the crest of the tide. Rim and I made as though to turn away.
“Wait, Masters,” said the man. “She is a beauty!” we turned again, and, for some time, looked closely upon the proud Sheera. “Three pieces of gold,” said, “and five tarsks.” “She is yours,” said the man.
He, with a key at his belt, unsnapped her bracelets and turned her about, rudely, and pushed her belly against the bar. “Put your hands behind your back, and cross your wrists,” he said to the girl, not pleasantly. Sullenly, she did so. Rim, with his belt, then lashed her hands behind her back.
I paid the man his three gold pieces and his five tarsks. He was not too pleased. He waved his hand at the girls, sitting against the board fence. “We need cage space,” he said, angrily. “Take her.” Rim seized her by the arm, and pushed her ahead of us, stumbling, out of the compound.
When we reached the Tesephone, less than a hundred yards from the slave market, the tide was at a knife’s edge of its crest.
On the deck Sheera stood, her feet widely apart, to face me.
I had no time for her. I must attend to the ship. “Take her below,” I said, “and chain her in the first hold.” Rim pulled her rudely below.
Thurnock brought to me the wind and oil, and the salt. I stood at the rail. My men stood.
In a moment, Rim was again on deck, and he, too, stood watching.
To one side, two girls, Cara and Tina stood, both in their brief woolen slave garments. Tina’s hands at her belly, where they were still confined by the slave strap and bracelets.
“Ta-Sardar-Gor. Ta-Thassa,” said I, in Gorean. “To the Priest-Kings of Gor, and to the Sea.” Then, slowly, I poured the wine, and the oil into the sea, and the salt. “Cast off!” cried Thurnock. Men on the dock threw off the lines which had been looped on the mooring cleats. Two men at the bow thrust against the wharf with their poles.
The wharf, as though it, and not we, were moving, dropped back from us. “Out oars!” called Thurnock. “Ready oars!” seamen began to pull on the yard ropes to raise the yard.
The helmsman leaned on the great helm.
I saw Cara and Tina watching. The docks were filled with men. Several had paused in their work, to watch the Tesephone moving away from the wharf.
“Port oars! Stroke!” called Thurnock.
The bow of the Tesephone swung upriver. The carved, painted wooden eyes on the tarnshead turned towards Laura.
Men were aloft on the long, sloping yard. Then the sail fell, snapping and tugging, and took its shape, billowing before the gentle wind from Thassa. “Full oars!” called Thurnock. “Quarter beat! Stroke!” The Tesephone began to move upriver.
I saw Cara and Tina standing by the rail. Cara was lifting her hands, and waving toward Lydius. Some men on the dock, small now, too, lifted their hands. Tina could not lift her hands to bid city farewell, for her wrists were locked in slave bracelets, fastened at her belly, strung through the ring of a slave strap.
I stepped behind her and unbuckled the slave strap.
She looked up at me.
She turned away from me and toward Lydius. Piteously she lifted her two hands, still braceleted, in salute to Lydius.
When she had done so, I again, from behind, pulled her hands to her belly, and buckled the slave strap behind her back. She fell to her knees on the deck, heard down, hair falling forward, revealing the collar at her neck, and wept. “Stroke!” called Thurnock, in his rhythm. “Stroke!” I strode to the stern castle and, with a builder’s glass, looked back toward Lydius. I noted, to my interest, the large, yellow medium galley from Tyros, too, was casting off. I thought little of this at the time.
6 I Hold Converse with Panther Girls and am Entertained by Sheera
On the evening of the second day out of Lydius I took a tiny lamp and went to the first hold, where many supplies are kept.
I lifted the lamp.
Sheera knelt there. She did not sit cross-legged. She knelt as a Gorean woman. A heavy chain, about a yard long, padlocked about her throat, dangled to a ring, where it was secured with a second padlock.
With her hands she covered herself, as best she could.
“Do not cover yourself,” I said. She was captive.
She lowered her hands.
I saw that there was a pan of water within her reach and, on the planking of the hold deck, some pieces of bread and a vegetable.
She looked at me.
I did not speak further to her but turned and, bent over under the low ceiling, left her, taking with me the tiny lamp.
She did not speak.
On the next morning I had her branded in the hold.
The Tesephone continued to move slowly upriver, between the banks of the Laurius, the fields to the south, the forests to the north.
I removed the slave strap and bracelets from Tina. She stretched and ran like an exultant little animal on the deck. Cara laughed at her.
She ran to the rail and looked over the side. Following in the wake of the Tesephone, to pick up litter or garbage thrown overboard, were long-bodied river sharks, their bodies sinuous in the half-clear water, about a foot below the surface.
Tina turned about and looked at me, agony on her face.
Then she lifted her eyes to the forests beyond. We heard, as is not uncommon, the screams of forest panthers within the darkness of the trees.
I went to stand beside her.
“Your best gamble,” I informed her, “would be to flee to the south, but there is little cover.” “In your slave tunic, with your brand and collar,” I said, “how long do you think it would be before you were picked up?” She put her head down.
“It is not pleasant, I expect,” I said, “to belong to peasants.”
She looked at me with horror, and then again turned to the forests on the north. “If you feel to the panther girls,” I asked, “ what do you surmise would be your fate?” inadvertently her hand touched the brand beneath her while woolen slave tunic. Then, standing beside me at the rail, looking toward the forest, she put both her hands on her collar. She tried to pull it from her neck.
She knew as well as I the contempt in which panther girls held female slaves. She, Tina, was well marked.
She was well marked as what she was, a female slave.
“If they did not use you as their slave themselves,” I said, “you would be soon sold.” Tina, the slave, wept. I turned and left her.
Cara, in her own collar, went to comfort her.
That night I went again to the hold, to once again look upon Sheera. She had now been branded.
I lifted the lamp, to better regard her.
The brand was an excellent one.
She knelt, chained to the ring. She did not attempt to cover herself. “Why did you buy me?” “Come to my arms,” I said.
“No!” she said, “No!”
“Come to my arms,” I said.
She lifted her arms to me.
The next night, I again looked upon Sheera. Without speaking, she opened her arms, and sought me, pressing her body, kneeling, to mine, her lips to mine. The following night, the night before we would make landfall in Laura, when I had finished with her, she lay on her belly on the planks, her head in her hands, lifted, on her elbows. Her hair was forward. She was breathing deeply. Even in the flickering light I could see the beautiful mottlings on her body, on the sides of her breasts and body, red and white, still rich and subtle in her hot, blood-charged skin. The chain dangled to the floor, where it lay, half coiled near the ring. The fruit of her body hung free, and lovely. The nipples were still arch.