“You must have her taught to dance,” said the captain.
“It is my intention,” I said.
“The whip,” said the captain. “can teach a girl many things.”
“Truly have you spoken,” I agreed.
“A pretty slave,” he said, and then turned his kaiila away, his men following, to continue his examination of the men of the caravan. As he turned his kaiila, the lieutenant, who had accompanied him, he who had asserted that I was a Kavar spy, he who had urged them to slay me, cast me a dark look. Then he, too, was with the rest, and Farouk, down the caravan line.
“It will not be necessary, Master,” said Alyena, loftily, in Gorean, “to use the whip on me, to make me dance.”
“I know,” I laughed, “Slave!”
Her fists clenched.
“Veil yourself, “I said.
She did so.
“Remain within,” I said, “and do not peer out.”
“Yes, Master,” she said.
I saw her eyes, blue, angry, over the yellow veil, and then I, laughing, with my scimitar, brushed down the right-hand curtain of the kurdah, it dropping, concealing her within, a slave girl.
Gradually, as a girl begins to realize she is a slave, truly, in a society in which there are slaves, and in which one can truly be just that, and without an escape, a fantastic transformation takes place in her. I could already see the beginnings of this transformation in Alyena. She was already becoming excited about her collar, and her ownership by men. She was becoming curious about them.
She was becoming brazen, and shameless, as befits an article of property. She was now permitting herself thoughts and dreams that might have scandalized a free woman, but were for her, only a slave, quite appropriate. She was becoming petty, and pretty, and provocative. She was becoming sensual. She was becoming sly, clever, owned. Recently she had stooped to stealing a date. Though I had, of course, punished her for this, I was, secretly, quite pleased. It meant she was becoming a slave girl. Now I had seen her lift her body, beautifully, in removing her veil before men. I had seen her curiosity about what it would be to dance before them. She had informed me that it would not be necessary for me to use the leather on her, before she would apply herself to the lessons of the dances of slave girls. She thought herself, in herself, quite free, a slave only in name and collar, but in this she was deceiving herself. Let her keep that bit of pride, I thought, until some master takes it from her, and she, shattered, prone on the tiles, or submission mat, knows then, truly, she is only slave.
The lovely Alyena, though she did not know it, and would have refused to believe it, was coming along quite well.
She was becoming a slave girl.
5 What Occurred in the Palace of Suleiman Pasha
“What do you want for her?” asked Suleiman. He sat on cushions, on rugs of Tor.
He wore the kaffiyeh and agal, the cording that of the Aretai.
Before us, on the smooth, scarlet, inlaid floor, stood the girl. Her body was relaxed, but, nonetheless, held beautifully. She was looking away. She seemed bored, a bit insolent.
Low on her hips she wore, on a belt of rolled cloth, yellow dancing silk, in Turian drape, the thighs bare, the front right corner of the skirt thrust behind her to the left, the back left lower corner of the skirt thrust into the rolled belt at her right hip. She was barefoot; there were golden bangles, many of them, on her ankles, more on her left ankle. She wore a yellow-silk halter, hooked high, to accentuate the line of her beauty. She wore a gold, locked collar, and, looped about her neck, many light chains and pendants; on her wrists were many bracelets, on her upper arms, both left and right, were armlets, tight, there being again more on the left arm. She shook her head, her hair was loose.
“Prepare to please a free man,” I told the girl.
She was blond, blue-eyed, light-skinned.
She bent her knees, weight on her heels, lifted her hands, high over her head, wrists close together, back to back, on her thumbs and fingers, poised, tiny cymbals.
I nodded to the musicians. The music began. There was a bright flash of the tiny finger cymbals and Alyena danced for us.
“Do you like the slave?” I asked.
Suleiman watched her, through heavily lidded, narrow eyes. His face betrayed no emotion. “She is not without interest,” he said.
I removed from within my robes the belt in which I had concealed gems. I cut the stitching, which held the two sewn pieces together and, one by one, placed the gems on the low, inlaid, lacquered table behind which, cross-legged, sat Suleiman. He looked at the gems, taking them, one after the other, between the first finger and thumb of his right hand. Sometimes he held them to the light. I had made certain I knew, within marketing ranges, the values of the stones, and what, within reason, they would bring in weights of pressed dates.
To the right of Suleiman, languid, sat another man. He, too, wore kaffiyeh and agal, a kaftan of silk. He was a salt merchant, from Kasra.
“I regret,” said Ibn Saran, “that we could not travel together to Kasra, and then Tor.”
“I was called away swiftly,” said I, “on matters of business.”
“It was my loss,” smiled Ibn Saran, lifting to his lips a tiny, steaming cup of black wine.
Suleiman, with his finger, pushed back certain of the stones toward me.
I replaced these in my wallet. His greatest interest, apparently, lay in the sereem diamonds and opals.
Both sorts of stones were rare in the Tahari gem trade.
He lifted his eyes to Alyena. Her body seemed barely to move, yet it danced, as though against her will. It seemed she tried to hold herself immobile, as though fighting her own body, but yet that it forced her to dance, betraying her as a slave girl to the gaze of masters. Her eyes were shut, her teeth clenched on her lip, her face agonized; her arms were above her head, her fists clenched, and yet, seemingly in isolation, seemingly against her resolve, her body moved, forcing her to be beautiful before men. A fantastic intensity is achieved by this dancer’s artifice. It was not lost on Suleiman, or Ibn Saran.
I had waited a month at the Oasis of Nine Wells before being granted an audience with Suleiman.
Ibn Saran, not taking his eyes from Alyena, lifted his finger. From one side a slave girl, barefoot, bangled, in sashed, diaphanous, trousered chalwar, gathered at the ankles, in tight, red-silk vest, with bare midriff, fled to him, with the tall, graceful, silvered pot-containing the black wine. She was veiled.
She knelt, replenishing the drink. Beneath her veil I saw the metal of her collar.
I had not thought to have such fortune. She did not look at me. She returned to her place with the pot of black wine.
Ibn Saran lifted another finger. From the side there hastened to him another girl, a fair-skinned, red-haired girl. She, too, wore veil, vest, chalwar, bangles, collar. She carried a tray, on which were various spoons and sugars.
She knelt, placing her tray on the table. With a tiny spoon, its tip no more than a tenth of a hort in diameter, she placed four measures of white sugar, and six of yellow, in the cup; with two stirring spoons, one for the white sugar, another for the yellow, she stirred the beverage after each measure. She then held the cup to the side of her cheek, testing its temperature; Ibn Saran glanced at her; she, looking at him, timidly kissed the side of the cup and placed it before him. Then, her head down, she withdrew.
I did not turn to look back at the first girl, she who held the silvered pot.
I wondered if she belonged to Suleiman or Ibn Saran. I supposed to Suleiman, for it was within his palace that we sat, concerned with our business.
Suleiman, reluctantly, pushed two more stones back toward me. Not speaking, I put them in my wallet.
In her dance, Alyena turned. I smiled. Beneath the small of her back, on the left side, I could see, through the yellow silk, that the bruise had not yet healed. She had received it on the caravan march; four days earlier, before the bruise had been inflicted on her, we had been joined by the officers and escort sent forth from Nine Wells. She had received it at a watering place. She had been carrying a large bag of churned verr milk on her head. It had been given to her by an agile, broad-shouldered, handsome young nomad. I had seen it and, in my opinion, she had asked for it. She, with her burden, had walked past him, near him, and as a slave girl. He had leaped to his feet and, swift, with fingers like pliers, had administered a sharp, jocular bit of instruction to the bold wench. Her yelp resounded for a radius of a quarter of a pasang about the watering hole, startling even the verr and kaiila. She dropped the churned verr milk, the bag’s seams fortunately for her not splitting, and spun to face him, but he was towering over her, not four inches from her. “You walk well, Slave Girl,” he told her. She staggered backward, frightened, stumbling, until she was backed against the backward-leaning trunk of a flahdah tree. She looked up at him. “You’re a pretty little slave girl,” he said. “I would not mind owning you.” She turned her head away. “Oh!” she cried. His hand was on her body, and she, writhing, weeping, with her heels, pushing herself, back scraping on the bark, climbed almost a foot up the slanting trunk, before he, through her veil, truth of her, the deepest truth of her, which no longer may she conceal.”