"I have seen some empty collars about, on the other platforms," I said.
"Perhaps the sales, then, are going well," she said. "I dare not turn my head to look. One girl was beaten fearfully for that, only an Ahn ago."
The matter of the empty collars was not an easy one to interpret. If there are no empty collars then customers may think that no one else in interested in the merchandise, perhaps that something might be wrong with it, and then go elsewhere. If there are only y a few girls left, and many empty collars, they may get the impression, perhaps mistakenly, that nothing much of interest is likely to be left. The ideal impression to convey to the customer is perhaps that you have marvelous merchandise for sale, that even now many people are interested and buying, that it is moving fast, and that if he sees a girl he wants, perhaps he should snatch her up before someone else does. If you see a female locked in her platform collar, with its chain, of course, and in a while you see the collar empty, it is not irrational to suppose that she has been sold. Sometimes a woman who has been sold is not immediately removed from the platform but only, in one way or another, marked "Sold." There are several ways in which this can be done. For example, she may be placed in a white hood bearing the word «Sold» in red letters, a red tag, bearing the inscription, "Sold," may be wired to her collar, or the word «Sold» may be simply written in grease pencil on her body, usually, by convention, on her left breast.
"I think the sales are not going as well as they might," I said.
"Master?" she asked, frightened.
"You were put out only this morning," I said. "That suggests that the goods are not moving as rapidly as they might. Too, it is my impression, from what I have seen here and elsewhere, that there is an unusual amount of high-quality merchandise available this spring. I suspect that many of the lots, even large lots, literal bevies of luscious slaves, chained together forty or fifty in a lot, may end up being simply purchased by slavers at rock-bottom prices, for purposes of later speculation."
She groaned. "I am afraid the masters will be displeased," she said.
Her apprehension was understandable. She was a slave.
"Are you interested in this slave?" asked one of the men on the platform, coming over, his whip in hand. I did not think he was of the house of Samos. I did not, at any rate, know him. He was probably a slaver's agent, licensed for work at the fair. There are many fellows who, seasonally, do this work. At other times they normally work in slaver's houses. He may, of course, have been one of the fellows on the fairs' permanent staff. there are four such fairs, administered by the merchants, held annually in the vicinity of the Sardar, those of En'Kara, En'Var, Se'Kara and Se'Var. The girl was immediately very still, and very quiet, on all fours.
"I think I can find a buyer for her," I said.
"Who?" he asked.
"Come now," I said. "Let us not be naive."
"Do you want a commission?" he asked. "We are very careful about that sort of business."
"No," I said.
"Ah," he said, pleased. What he feared, of course, particularly since he did not know me, is the trick of two friends cooperating in the purchase of a slave. One attempts to obtain a finder's commission from the merchant which he then, of course, turns back to his friend, the buyer. In this way, the salve is purchased more cheaply. AS it was, since I was not bargaining for a commission w2ith him, he presumably supposed that I would obtain a finder's fee from the buyer. Some people actually make their living in this way, acting as buying agents, providing services such as locating rare slaves for collectors and filling the "want lists" of rich men.
"I would appreciate it, however," I said, "if you would put a 'hold' on her until, say, the eighteenth Ahn."
"Impossible," he said. "Look at her. See the curves, the lines." He tapped her with the whip. "Superb slave meat."
"I cannot get the buyer here until then," I said.
"Ten copper tarsks, to hold her until then," he said.
"Absurd," I said.
"It is refundable," he said.
"Under what conditions?" I asked.
"That you bring your buyer to the platform before the eighteenth Ahn," he said.
"What if he doesn't want her?" I asked. Actually, I was pretty confident he would want her.
"I will not hold you responsible for that," he said. "I will still give you back your tarsks."
"Good," I said. I then gave him the ten copper tarsks. His reasonableness in this matter, I suspect, was due at least in part to the slowness of the market. Indeed, some of the girls in the market, I suspected, would go for as little as that same ten copper tarsks.
"Hold still, Girl," said the man to the girl. I watched him while he, crouching down beside her, wired a circular, white tag, a holding disk, to her collar. He had placed his whip behind her. Some men place the whip where the slave can see it, noting its heavy-leather blades or coils, that she may understand its menace. Others, like this fellow, place the whip behind her, where she does not know precisely where it is, but knows very well that it is there. The second placement is perhaps, generally somewhat more to be dreaded by the female. There are no hard-and-fast rules in this sort of thing. Much can depend on the girl, on her intelligence and imagination, on the stage of her training, on the specific occasion in question, and so on. Sometimes it is desirable to have the female look very closely and clearly on the whip and, at other times, it is better for her merely to understand that it is in her immediate vicinity, somewhere, and that she may not, now, turn about to determine its specific location.
The tag on its wire now dangled some four inches below her collar. It had been one of several such tags in a small bag hooked to his belt. It had an inked «Eighteen» on it. Some of the white tags were blank, and might be written on. The red tags carry the inscription "sold." A black tag is sometimes used to indicate that a girl is ill. A yellow tag sometimes indicates that a girl is not to be sold without prior consultation with the slaver. Tags are sometimes, too, used to indicate distinctions among slaves, at least among slavers themselves, being correlated to the classes or grades of slaves. For example, a brown tag commonly signifies a low slave, such as a mere kettle-and-mat girl or a pot girl, little more than female work slaves, and so on, whereas a gold tag commonly signifies a much higher grade of slave, usually a trained pleasure slave or a dancer. There is, however, to be perfectly honest, no absolutely uniform color coding in these matters. different houses have their own conventions. It is unusual, incidentally, for a woman to be tagged in a regular market, except in so far as she might be marked «Sold» or have a «Hold» put on her. It is not hard in a Gorean market, for example, where the women are usually stripped, or will be stripped for they buyer's inspection, to see who is most beautiful or interesting. Too, of course, women in such a market can be literally made to display their beauty and pose and perform in various ways for the viewers. This, too, makes it easier to make choices amongst them.
One form of tagging is fairly common, however, during sales, and that is tagging during auctions, or in preparation for large sales, as when the girls are in exhibition cages, before being brought, usually serially, later, before the public. This form of tagging is the sales disk. It bears the girl's lot number on it. It is usually wired to her collar. This provides not only the seller with a convenience, helping to make certain his records remain clear, but it can be h elpful to the buyer also, who may then, presumably already having established his interests, perhaps in virtue of commands earlier addressed to the lovely chattels in the exhibition cages, simply bid by number.
I regarded the girl. She was quite beautiful, in all fours on the platform, the short chain on her neck descending to its ring in the heavy planks. There was a white disk dangling from her collar. She would be held until the eighteenth Ahn. The slaver's man was now again on h is feet. He had retrieved his whip.