"Stand, little Dina," said the auctioneer.
I stood.
I brushed back my hair. I choked back my sobs.
I looked out to the crowd, to the men, and the women.
"I have from the tavern of the Belled Collar," said the auctioneer, "a bid of one silver tarsk. Is there a higher bid?"
Strangely, at that time, I thought of Elicia Nevins, who had been my rival at the college. How amused she would be, I thought, to see me being sold naked from a block.
"Sold to the Belled Collar for a silver tarsk!" said the auctioneer.
I had been sold.
He then thrust me toward the stairs and I, stumbling, descended the stairs, on the side opposite from that from which I had ascended the block.
"Girl 129!" I heard him call.
At the foot of the block a man from the house took me by the wrist and pulled me to a chain. Slave bracelets were fixed on the chain. He thrust me behind the last girl on the chain; she was kneeling, braceleted to the chain, facing away from me; her head was down. "Kneel," he said; I knelt; he fastened my wrists in the dangling slave bracelets, attached to the chain; I then knelt at the chain, secured; in time another girl who, too, had been sold, was placed on the chain behind me; and then another, and another. I knelt, locked in the bracelets, secured to the chain. I had been sold.
14
Two Men
"Paga, Master?" I inquired.
He waved me away.
I turned from him with a rustle of bells, looking about me. The girl in the sand was quite good. It was still early in the evening, the sixteenth hour. She scarcely moved, swaying, ankles close, arms over her head, wrists back to back, palms turned out. Yet she subtly danced, controlled by the music of a single flute. Some men watched her. We had five dancers at the Belled Collar. I thought all were fine. The best would perform later in the evening. Four performed a day, and one would rest. I could not dance. There was only one musician at the side of the sand. Others would join him later. Their leader was Andronicus, who played the czethar.
"Paga," called a man.
I hurried to him, carrying the large bronze vessel of paga, on its strap about my shoulder.
I knelt and filled his cup. He did not order me to an alcove. I rose and, carrying the vessel of paga, went to the door of the tavern, to step outside, to taste the air. As a paga girl I came with the purchased cup of fluid, but, of course, I, like the others, was only a lovely option; whether I served in an alcove depended entirely on the whim and appetite of the customer. Many men, naturally, came to the tavern only to meet their friends, to talk and drink. Some nights I had not been used at all. I had been, of course, completely available. As paga girls went I was popular, and my master, Busebius, was not disappointed in me. He had made, I gather, a good buy on me. More than many of the girls had I squirmed in the alcoves, sometimes chained, writhing under the touch of masters, whimpering and crying out the submission I could not help but yield. I knew there were men who came back particularly for me. I had brought business to the tavern. The rules of the tavern with respect to the slave girls were simple. The customer could select any serving slave for his pleasure, providing he had paid the price of the paga; he could pick the girl of his interest, whether she had poured him the paga in question or not; to be sure, the customer usually commanded his paga from the wench who had caught his fancy, if he was planning on using her; if he was not interested in the having of a slave girl he would usually call his paga from the closest wench; each cup of paga entitled him to take one slave to the alcove; thus, theoretically, he might use several in one evening; these arrangements, however, terminated with the dawn, and the closing of the tavern; he might not, so to speak, save his cups for later. Dancers must be separately negotiated for.
I stepped outside the tavern, to drink in the pure air of Gor. We were permitted outside the tavern.
I stood beneath the sign of the Belled Collar, which swung above me, a large collar, from which hung bells.
"Greetings, Teela," said a man, passing by.
"Greetings, Master," I said.
I was Teela, a paga slave of the Belled Collar. That could be read, I understood, on the close-fitting steel collar I wore, a ten-hort collar.
I looked out, over the bridge, to the towers and cylinders beyond, and to the sunset over the walls of Ar. I saw the tracery of the bridges against the sky, the people moving about on them. Far below, in the streets I could see carts and wagons, too, being drawn by tharlarion. I looked up. One or two tarnsmen, on patrol, I saw in the sky. I thought of Clitus Vitellius.
"Greetings, Teela," said the girl who now stood beside me, who had come, like myself, from the tavern. She, like I, wore slave bells on her left ankle, brief, parted yellow silk, the house collar. We stood barefoot on the bridge.
I did not speak to her, but looked away.
"I am sorry I fought you for the candy," she said.
"I won it," I said, angrily.
"Yes, Teela," she said. Then she said, angrily, "It fell closest to me. It should have been mine."
Busebius, our master, sometimes, before ordering us to bathe and prepare ourselves for the floor, scattered a handful of hard candies among us. They were very precious, and, on the tiles of the slave room, we fought for them.
I looked at Bina.
I had leaped for the candy. It had been snatched by her hand. I had torn open her hand and thrust it in my mouth. She had struck me and pulled my hair. Rolling, wildly, screaming, we had bitten, clawed and kicked at one another. Then Busebius had whipped us apart. We had shrunk back from one another, cringing, punished slave girls.
"How foolish you looked," laughed Busebius. We reddened. We were only girls. Did he expect us to fight like men? How small and weak we felt.
"Hurry now to the baths," he said, "and thence to the room of preparation, for you must be soon upon the floor."