Explorers Of Gor

8
What Occurred In The Golden Kailiauk

"Hurry! Hurry, clumsy slave!" cried the small, scarred man, crooked-backed, his right leg dragging behind him. He wore a dirty tunic; over it was a long, brown aba, torn and ragged. He was barefoot. A brown cloth, turbanlike, was twisted about his head. He seemed angry. His feet and legs, and those of the slave, were muddy and dirty, from the mud in the streets.

"Hurry!" he cried.

"Oh!" she cried, sobbing in the blindfold, driven before him, struck again by the long switch in his right hand.

"Oh! Oh!" she cried. "Please, don't hit me again, Master!"

Then she cried out again, stumbling and weeping, before him, struck twice more.

I followed at a discreet distance. I had observed her sale by means of a glass of the builders, from a roof top near Uchafu's market. I had then telescoped the glass and slipped it into my pouch. I had seen silver exchange hands. But I did not know precisely how many pieces had been paid, as the buyer's back, as be turned, was then toward me.

"Hurry!" he cried. He struck her again.

"Yes, Master!" she cried.

He was dressed as a beggar, but I did not think him of that profession. Too, beggars do not buy slave girls, or openly buy them.

I was sure the man was an agent of Kurii.

He struck her again, and again she stumbled on before him. She still wore her blindfold, that black cloth covering most of the upper portion of her head. She had never seen, I knew, Uchafu's market and she did not know where she was being driven. All she had seen of Schendi was, the harbor and wharf. Then she had been blindfolded. She stumbled on, miserably, before her herder. Her small hands were still secured at her belly, but now by binding fiber. Her wrists had been crossed and bound, and then the long end of the fiber had been taken about her body and tied again to her wrists. This way she could not, still, reach the blindfold, and her back was fully exposed, as was doubtless intended, for the stroke of the herding switch. Uchafu's collar had been removed from her in the market and another collar had been snapped on her throat. I had not, of course, had a chance to read it.

"Please do not strike me any more, Master!" she begged, stumbling. "I am hurrying! I am hurrying!"

Then she stumbled against a free woman, who, in fury, screamed at her, and began to strike and kick at her.

She fell to her knees, and put her head down. "Forgive me, Mistress!" she begged. "Forgive me!"

The free woman, angrily, continued on her way.

"Get up!" snarled the herdsman.

The girl tried to get up but her foot slipped in the mud and she fell to her side.

Instantly the man was on her with the switch, lashing down at her. "Get up, you worthless white slut!" he cried.

She struggled to her feet. "Yes, Master! Yes, Master!" she wept.

"Hurry!" he cried. He struck her again.

"Which way?" she cried, disoriented. She looked about, blindly, her feet in the mud. "Oh! Oh!" she cried, richly struck, and then fell to her knees, sobbing, helpless. He pulled her to her feet by the left arm and thrust her ahead of him, down the street.

"Hurry!" he commanded. He struck her again.

"Yes, Master," she sobbed, and, again, stumbled on before him, a blindfolded, herded slave girl.

I looked behind me occasionally, but I saw only the normal occupants and passers-by of the streets of Schendi. I wore the garb now of a leather worker. If inquiries had been made it would be recalled that he who had arrived in the Palms of Schendi had been, at least ostensibly, of the metal workers.

"In here, worthless slave," said the man, and, taking the girl by the arm, thrust her through the doors of a paga tavern, the Golden Kailiauk.

He took her over beside a wall, across from the main door, and close to a small side door.

"Lie down here," he told her.

She lay down on the wooden floor.

"On your side," he said. "Pull your knees up under your chin."

She then lay there, small, her knees drawn up.

He hurled his brown aba over her, covering her completely, and limped out, through the small side door.

"Does Master desire aught?" asked a black girl, kneeling before me, a paga slave of the establishment.

"Paga," I said to her. She rose to her feet and went to the vat behind the counter. I sat down, cross-legged, behind a low table, from which vantage point I could see the girl lying on the floor, she covered with the beggar's aba.

I assumed her herdsman had delivered her to this tavern, that she be picked up by someone else.

I nursed the paga, making it last.

But no one seemed to come for her.

I began to be apprehensive that perhaps some mistake had occurred. What if Ulafi had been mistaken about the girl. What if he had not, really, received two tarsks from Uchafu for her. What if the beggar had made a serious purchase of the girl on behalf of the tavern keeper? What if she were merely being delivered here to be trained as a mere paga girl? I glanced around. There was only one other white girl in the tavern, a dark-haired girl, collared, in yellow pleasure silk, she, too, apparently a paga slave, like the black girls, waiting on the tables. Perhaps the tavern keeper only wanted another white girl, to add variety for his clientele.

I looked at the blond-haired girl lying hidden under the aba. She did not dare to move.

But, no. I recalled clearly that silver had exchanged hands in her sale.

There was no mistake.

I must wait.

I ordered another cup of paga. I played a game of Kaissa with another guest of the tavern. The paga tasted a bit strange, but it was a local paga and there is variation in such pagas, generally a function of the brewer's choice of herbs and grains. From time to time I glanced at the girl under the aba. I used the Telnus Defense on the fellow, a response to his Ubara's Gambit, which I thought might be unknown in Schendi, as it had first been seen only last spring at the Fair of En'Kara, near the Sardar Mountains. He met it squarely, however, and I myself, no Centius of Cos, was soon involved in perplexing difficulties. I did manage, narrowly, to eke out a win in the endgame.

"I did not expect you would handle my response to your Ubara's Spearman to Ubara five as you did," I told him.

"You were obviously using the Telnus Defense," he said.

"You have heard of it?" I asked.

"I have read more than a hundred analyses of it," he said. "Do you think we are barbarians in Schendi?" he asked.

"No," I said.

"I congratulate you," he said. "You are quite skilled at Kaissa."

"I did not play my best game," I said.

"No one ever does," he said.

"Perhaps you are right," I said. "You are a fine player," I said. "Thank you for the game."

He shook hands, and left. He seemed a nice fellow. Those who play Kaissa are good chaps.

I glanced once more at the girl under the aba. I blinked once or twice. My eyes felt a bit strange, scratchy. My forearms, too, and belly, felt a little itchy. I scratched them.

"Master?" asked one of the girls, a black girl with high, regal cheekbones.

"More paga," I said.

"Yes, Master," she said.

In another Ahn some musicians arrived. Shortly thereafter, as the tavern grew more crowded, they began to play. My thigh felt irritated. I dug at it with my fingernails.

I watched the white-skinned, dark-haired girl, collared, serving cups to a distant table. She was nicely legged.

A skirl on a flute and a sudden pounding on twin tabors, small, hand drums, called my attention to the square of sand at the side of which sat the musicians.

I then gave my attention to the dancer, a sweetly hipped black girl in yellow beads.

She was skillful and, I suspected, from the use of the hands and beads, had been trained in Ianda, a merchant island north of Anango. Certain figures are formed with the hands and heads which have symbolic meaning, much of which was lost upon me, as I was not familiar with the conventions involved. Some, however, I had seen before, and had been explained to me. One was that of the free woman, another of the whip, another of the yielding, collared slave. Another was that of the thieving slave girl, and another that of the girl summoned, terrified, before the master. Each of these, with the music and followed by its dance expression, was very well done. Women are beautiful and they make fantastic dancers. One of the figures done was that of a girl, a slave, who encounters one who is afflicted with plague. She, a slave, knows that if she should contract the disease she would, in all probability, be summarily slain. She dances her terror at this. This was followed by the figure of obedience, and that by the figure of joy.

I looked about and did not see, any longer, the white-skinned, dark-haired girl, she who had been serving paga.

I was growing irritated, and a little drunk. It seemed to me that by now, surely, the blond-haired barbarian should have been picked up.

I glanced again at the aba by the wall. I could still see, beneath it, the lusciousness of a girl's curves. What marvelous slaves they make.

Suddenly I howled with rage and threw over the small table behind which I sat. I in two strides was at the aba, and I tore it away.

"Master!" screamed the girl beneath it, looking up, frightened.

It was not the blond-haired barbarian. It was the white-skinned, dark-haired girl, collared, in her bit of pleasure silk, who had been serving paga.

I pulled her to her knees by the hair. "Where is the other girl!" I demanded. "Where!"

"What is going on here?" cried the proprietor of the tavern, who had come in earlier, and was now behind the counter, ladling out paga.

One of the paga attendants came running toward me, but, seeing my eyes; hesitated. Several men were now on their feet. The musicians had stopped playing. The dancer stood still, on the sand, startled.

"Where is the girl who was under this aba," I demanded. "Where!"

"What girl was it?" asked the proprietor. "Whose was she?"

"She was brought in by Kunguni, when you were out," said one of the black girls.

"I gave orders that he was not again to be admitted to this tavern!" said the man.

"You were not here," moaned the girl. "We feared to tell a free man he could not enter."

"Where were you?" called the proprietor to the attendant. "I was in the kitchen," he said. "I did not know she had been brought in by Kunguni."

Angrily I threw the girl I held from me.

"Who saw her leave, with whom?" I demanded.

Men looked at one another.

"How came you beneath the aba?" I asked the girl whom I had thrown to one side.

"A man told me to creep beneath it," she said. "I did not see him! He told me not to look around!"

"You are lying," I told her.

"Be merciful, Master," she said. "I am only a slave!"

The paga attendant, he who was closest to me of the crowd, was looking at me, intently. I did not understand this. He edged uneasily backward. I did not understand this. I had not threatened him.

"A silver tarsk to the man who can find me that girl," I said.

The black girls looked at one another. "She was only a pot girl," said one of them.

"A silver tarsk," I said; repeating my offer, "to he who can find me that slave."

"Look at his eyes," said the paga attendant, backing away another step.

She could not have been gone long. I must hunt her in the streets.

Suddenly the dancer on the sand threw her hands before her face, and screamed. Then she pointed at me.

"It is the plague!" she cried. "It is the plague!"

The paga attendant, stumbling, turned and ran. "Plague!" he cried. Men fled from the tavern. I stood alone by the wall. Tables had been overturned. Paga was spilled upon the floor.

The tavern seemed, suddenly, eerily quiet. Even the paga girls had fled.

I could hear shouting outside, in the streets, and screaming.

"Call guardsmen!" I heard.

"Kill him," I heard. "Kill him!"

I walked over to a mirror. I ran my tongue over my lips. They seemed dry. The whites of my eyes, clearly, were yellow. I rolled up the sleeve of my tunic and saw there, on the flesh of the forearm, like black blisters, broken open, erupted, a scattering of pustules.