She was quite beautiful, the slave girl. I wondered how another slave girl, Vella, once Miss Elizabeth Cardwell of New York City, of Earth, who had betrayed Priest-Kings, would look thrown nude upon such a circle.
When the whip snapped, a heavy whip in the hand of one of the merchant’s brawny aides, the girl cried out, and her body reacted, in terror, as though struck.
But the leather, of course, had not touched her body. Its snap was only admonitory. It would not touch her body unless the men were not pleased with her.
“Stand!” said the merchant. “Head back! Hands behind head! Bend backwards!
Farther! Farther!” He turned to us. “Acceptable,” he said. Then to the girl he issued orders, rapidly, harshly. I watched, with interest, as the girl, tears in her eyes, responded to his swiftly issued, abrupt commands. For more than four Ehn he put her through a swift, staccato regimen of movement, a set of slave paces, assessment paces, designed to exhibit, vulnerably, decisively and publicly, her beauty, in all of it major attitudes and positions. “Hands on hips! Be insolent! Hands behind back! Hands crossed before you, as though bound!
Hands at throat, as though chained to collar, fingers before mouth! Fall to the floor! Kneel! Head down! Head up! Bend backwards! Farther! Roll to the floor, on your side, on your back, right leg high, now flexed, left leg high, now flexed, to your side, right leg extended, palms on floor, left leg extended, palms on floor! Appear angry! Appear frightened! Appear aroused! Smile!” He did this with the same swift, expert objectivity, and clinical detachment, that a physician might bring to a routine medical examination; this examination, of course, was a beauty examination, assessing the desirability of a female slave. The whip cracked again.
She cried out in misery, shuddering.
She looked up at him, in terror.
“Hassan?” asked the merchant.
“Very well,” said Hassan. He stepped to the edge of the circle.
“Crawl to his feet,” ordered the merchant.
The girl began to do so.
“On your belly,” said the merchant.
She did so. At his feet, unbidden, she pressed her lips to his slippers. “Keep me, Hassan,” she begged.
“To my lips,” he said.
She crept to her feet and lifted her lips to his. He tasted her well.
“Keep me, Hassan!” she wept.
He threw her back, to the center of the marble circle. “What is she worth?” asked Hassan of the merchant.
“I will give you a silver tarsk for her,” said he, “for she is only slave.”
“Hassan!” cried the girl.
“Done,” said Hassan, selling his slave.
“No, Hassan!” she cried.
“And two tarn disks of gold, of the mintage of Ar, for the free wench,” said the merchant.
“Agreed,” said Hassan.
“Hassan!” cried the slave girl.
“Take this slave away,” said the merchant.
A slave bracelet was locked about the left wrist of Zina and she was dragged to the wall, where she, on her knees, was put, facing the wall. The bracelet not locked about her left wrist was then put through the slave ring and, this done, her right wrist was locked in it, confining both her wrists at the ring, her belly facing the wall. She looked over her right shoulder at Hassan. “Hassan!” she cried.
Hassan took the moneys from the merchant. “In the next room,” said the merchant, “we will deal for the other goods.”
“Yes,” said Hassan.
“Hassan!” cried the girl.
He left the room. He did not speak to the traitress. He was of the Tahari.
“More, Masters?” asked the girl, kneeling beside the low, tem-wood-inlaid table.
She wore a high, red-silk vest, swelling, fastened with a single hook; diaphanous red-silk chalwar, low on her hips, gathered at the ankles; two golden bangles on her left ankle; collar.
“No, Yiza, retire,” said the merchant.
“Yes, Master,” she said.
She lowered her eyes and, taking the tray with black wine and sugars, rose gracefully to her feet, backed away, turned, and left the room.
She moved sweetly. She had been aroused from sleep, not permitted to veil herself, and instructed to prepare and serve black wine. This she had done. At the interior corners of her eyes had been the signs of sleep: she had yawned like a cat when kneeling to one side: her face, and her mouth, had revealed the heavy, sweet lassitude of the beautiful woman, who is weary, when she had left.
Though she held herself erect, as an imbonded girl must, there had been a slow, felicitous swing to her gait, graceful, languid, somnolent, subtly betraying the weariness of her beauty, awakened and forced so early to serve. Her haunches flowed beneath the silk, and then she had disappeared. I did not think it would take her long to remove her clothing, draw her rep-cloth sheet about her and, drawing her knees up, fall asleep on the straw of her cell, which, under pain of death, she would shut behind her, locking it.
When she had left the room she hid used the runner at the side of the room, Rooms in private dwellings, in the Tahari, if rich, usually are floored with costly rugs. The rooms are seldom crossed directly, in order to prevent undue wear on the rugs: long strips of ruglike material line the edges of the room; these are commonly used in moving from room to room; children, servants, slaves, women, commonly negotiate the rooms by keeping on the runners, near the walls.
Men commonly do also, if guests are not present.
“The breaking of a well,” said the merchant, “is an almost inconceivable criminal act.”
Neither of us, Hassan, nor myself, responded to him. What he said was true.
Earlier, though it had not been our original intention, following our commercial interaction, in which Hassan had exchanged his plunder, flesh and otherwise, for gold, we had been conducted by the merchant to the well, shattered, perhaps ruined. Under torches men bad labored, removing stone and sand in leather buckets on long ropes. Hassan’s fists had clenched. We had then retired to the merchant’s house for black wine. It was two Ahn before dawn.
The various prices and coins had totaled eleven tarn disks of Ar, and four of Turia. To his nine men, apiece, he had thrown a tarn disk of Ar. The rest he kept for himself. A gold tarn disk of Ar is more than many common laborers earn in a year. Many low-caste Goreans have never held one in their hand. His men, outside, waited, the reins of their kaiila in hand.
“And strangest of all,” said the merchant, leaning forward, looking at us intently, “is the fact that the Aretai raiders were led by a woman!”
“A woman?” asked Hassan.
“Yes,” said the merchant.
“And the war messengers have already been sent?” asked Hassan.
“To all the oases of the Kavars and their vassal tribes,” said the merchant.
“Has there been talk of truce, of discussion?” asked Hassan.
“With those who have cost water?” asked the merchant. “Of course not!”
“And what word,” asked Hassan, “has been heard from Haroun, high pasha of the Kavars?”
“Who knows where Haroun is?” asked the merchant, spreading his bands.
“And of his vizier, Baram, Sheik of Bezhad?”
“The war messengers have been sent,” said the merchant.
“I see,” said Hassan “
“The tribes gather, said the merchant. “The desert will flame.”
“I am weary,” said Hassan. “And I do not think it wise to be too publicly in Two Scimitars by daylight.”
“Hasaad Pasha knows that raiders come to Two Scimitars,” smiled the merchant.
“It is useful to our economy. We are not on main trade routes.”
“He does not know officially,” said Hassan, “and I do not wish him to have to dispatch a hundred soldiers to ride about in the desert searching for us, to satisfy outraged citizens. I do not feel like a hard ride now, and doubtless, too, neither do the soldiers. Besides, if we actually encountered one another, it would be quite embarrassing to both parties. What would we do?”
“Ride past one another shouting wildly?” suggested the merchant.
“Perhaps,” smiled Hassan.