"Stand," said the slaver's man.
My group stood.
"Move to the next position," he said.
We hurried to the next position.
We were now coffled in groups of ten. Early in the sale, for the first twenty girls, the chain had been intact, one chain for us all. With each sale we had moved one position. Each time we had moved one or two positions on the bench we knew that one or two of our sisters had been sold. The psychological effect of this, methodical and relentless, tends to produce anticipation and anxiety, even in an experienced girl. No girl ever grows completely used to being exhibited and sold. Then, after the first twenty girls, when our nerves were keen and taut, we were separated into coffles of ten. We might then seem to relax. But when our nerves had eased and we might seem to breathe a bit more easily, the coffle, as a whole, would be ordered to its feet and moved ten spaces toward the end of the tunnel. The effect of this, being for a time relatively at ease, and then being forced suddenly to move ten times closer to the block tends, suddenly, to whet one's fears and anticipations anew; when one, psychologically, in spite of herself, had begun to feel a little safe one is suddenly hurried even closer to her exhibition and sale, and all it means, the uncertainty, the danger, the not knowing, the being sold, the being owned anew, by someone who can do with you what he pleases.
I could now hear the calls of the auctioneer quite clearly. I could hear individuals, too, in the crowd. A vendor was hawking sherbets.
I was now in the point coffle, that at the end of the tunnel. The sales were doing well.
The girl to my left, she in the house tunic, sat tense beside me. Her fingernails dug into the wood of the bench. Her make-up was inspected and touched up. Then she was removed from the coffle, the collar, and the length of chain on her right, attaching her to me, placed to one side. A man stood near the end of the tunnel, with a tablet and marking stick. He indicated that she should approach him. She did. He inspected her chain number, used in the Curulean as a sales number, which, tiny, was written under her left ear in lipstick. The Curulean does not use sales collars. She was Girl 90.
I heard a roar of approval and I knew the girl on the block had been sold. Another girl, Girl 89, had been waiting at the foot of the block. A man with a whip prodded her to climb to its height. She moved carefully, feeling the stairs, creeping upward. She wore a slave scarf, as a blindfold. It was all she wore. The man with the tablet quickly thrust the girl in the house tunic from the tunnel to the foot of the stairs leading to the block.
"Look at me," said a man.
I sat very still, looking at him. He examined my make-up. Deftly, he improved it.
"You are beautiful," he said.
"Thank you, Master," I whispered.
Another man removed my collar, with the chain that fastened me to the girl on my right, the virginal girl in a bit of white fluff. The man with the tablet indicated that I should stand near him, and I did. From where I stood, at the end of the tunnel, I could see the ceiling of the Curulean, and some of the buyers, crowded in the higher tiers.
Their excitement frightened me. The sales were going too well.
The crowd roared. The girl on the block, naked, was being forced to perform blindfolded before the men.
She screamed with misery when the blindfold was removed, looking out upon buyers.
She was soon sold.
The girl in the house tunic was hurried to the height of the block.
"What have we here?" cried the auctioneer. "Surely there is some mistake. This is only a meaningless little house slave!"
The crowd roared with laughter.
The man with the tablet listened intently. He did not order me immediately to the foot of the stairs, those leading to the surface of the great block at the Curulean.
He glanced back at the slender, frightened girl, in the bit of white fluff, still in chain and collar, on the bench. She looked away from him, frightened, looking straight ahead.
I wished my hair was longer.
I listened to the sale of the girl in the house tunic. It would soon be torn from her.
"Number," said the man with the tablet to me.
I turned, and put my head to the side, that he might read the tiny number printed in lipstick beneath my left ear.
"Ninety-one," he said. He jotted it down on the sales sheets.
I heard the tunic torn from the girl on the block, the roar of the crowd.
She was now being exhibited naked.
The man with the tablet thrust me toward the foot of the block, and I stumbled to the place at the foot of its stairs. I stood, that I not disarrange the bands of silk so cunningly looped about me. The man with the tablet had apparently decided not to alter the order of sales. I think this was wise on his part. The girl in the house tunic, seemingly not yet broken in, not yet humbled and trained to the collar of pleasure, might have whetted the appetite of the buyers for an even more virginal, innocent form of merchandise, but, on the block, as I gathered from the remarks of the auctioneer and the responses of the crowd there was now little illusion left lingering of her formality or restraint, or reluctance; only too clearly, she starved for male domination, was she eager and ready for the slave ring at the foot of a man's couch.
Then she was sold.
I climbed to the height of the block. The block was very large. I had not realized how many were in the crowd. The crowd was silent. This frightened me.
The auctioneer seemed puzzled, too, but only momentarily. "Someone, it seems," he said, "has sent us a gift." He indicated me with the whip. "Its contours," he said, "suggest that it is lovely." He looked out to the crowd. "Shall we see?" he asked.
But the crowd, instead of urging him on, was quiet. His hand shook for a moment. I was frightened. I did not understand the mood of the crowd.
"Let us see," he continued, with feigned humor. He lifted away loops of silk which concealed my head. There was a murmur of admiration from the crowd. I was too vain not to have been pleased. "A lovely face," he said, "feminine, soft, vulnerable, expressive. It would be easy to read in order to control her." He shrugged. "The hair, of course," said he, "is far too short, but I am assured, by officers of the Curulean, that it will grow."
There was no laughter from the crowd.
The auctioneer's hand trembled. He was nervous. I thrust my right leg forward, lifting it, pointing the toes, touching only the toes of my right foot to the floor. My left hip was turned out. I lifted and extended my left arm, wrist bent, palm to the left.
Gracefully then did he unloop, bit by bit, the silk from my left arm.
"A lovely limb," he said.
The crowd seemed quiet, intense, watchful. The auctioneer was clearly disturbed.
"Let us see if there is more of interest here," he said.
I heard an intake of breath from the crowd, but there were no bids.
We did not complete the choreography which had been planned. Much depends upon the crowd. It interacts in the drama of the block in a way that it, or many of its members, fails to understand. The auctioneer, puzzled, finally removed from my person the bands of silk. He did not spin me from them; he did not roll me from them at his feet.
"This is the woman," he said. "What am I bid?"
There was no bid.
"Look!" cried a voice. The crowd turned, and I and the auctioneer, looked as well. At the height of the center aisle, high, framed in the portal of the market hail, stood a warrior, in full panoply of war. He did not speak. He carried shield and spear. On his left shoulder hung the scabbard of the short sword. He was helmeted.