Mercenaries of Gor

22 The Insula of Achiates

"The stench is terrible," said Boabissia.

"Do not throw up," I told her. "You will get used to it."

"I have told them, time and time again," said the proprietor, testily, carrying the small lamp, "that they should keep the lid on. It is heavy, of course, and so it is too often left awry." With a grating sound, he shoved the heavy terracotta lid back in place, on the huge vat. It was at the foot of the stairs, where the slop pots could be emptied into it. Such vats are changed once or twice weekly, the old vats loaded in wagons and taken outside the city, where their contents are disposed of at one of the carnarii, or places of refuse pits. They are then rinsed out and ready to be delivered again, in their turn, to customers. This is done by one of several companies organized for the purpose. The work is commonly done by male slaves, supervised by free men.

"Follow me," said the proprietor, beginning to ascend the stairs.

I followed him. Behind me came Boabissia. Then came Hurtha. Feiqa came last. The staircase was narrow. It would be difficult for two people to pass on it. That would make it easy to defend, I thought. It was also steep. That was good. It did not have an open side but was set between two walls. That conserved space. It made possible extra rooms. Space is precious in a crowded insula. The stairwell boards were narrow. That was not so good, unless one were on the landing. That would be the place to make a stand. One could not get one's entire foot on them. They were old. Some were split. Several were loose. For a bit we could make our way in the light from the shallow vestibule below, where it filtered in through the shutters of the entrance gate, but in a moment or two, we became substantially dependent on the proprietor's tiny lamp. It cast odd shadows.

"I cannot stand the smell," said Boabissia.

"The room is a tarsk bit a night," said the proprietor. "You may take it or leave it. You are lucky we have one left. These are busy days in Ar."

"We could have had a better place were it not for something," said Boabissia, irritably.

That might have been true. I did not know. It was hard to say. Several of the insulae we had investigated did not allow animals, which meant, of course, that we could not keep Feiqa with us. Some of them did, however, have some provision for slaves, such as basement kennels or chaining posts in the yard. I preferred, however, to keep Feiqa with us. She was lovely. I did not wish to have her stolen.

"The insula of Achiates," said the proprietor, "is still the finest insula in all Ar."

"It is dark," said Boabissia.

"How far is it now?" I asked.

"Not far," said the proprietor.

As we climbed, the landings were frequent. The ceilings on the various levels of insulae are generally very low. In most of the rooms a man cannot stand upright. This makes additional floors possible.

I put out my hands and touched the walls on the sides of the staircase. They were very close. They were chipped. In places there were long diagonal cracks in them, marking stress points in the structure where the plaster has broken. The insula of Achiates might be the finest insula in Ar, but I thought that it stood somewhat in a condition of at least minor disrepair. A bit of renovation might not have been entirely out of order. The walls, too, were frequently discolored, run with various stains, water stains and other stains.

"This place stinks," said Boabissia. "It stinks."

"It is those brats," said the proprietor. "They are too lazy to go downstairs." "There are families here?" asked Boabissia. "Of course," said the proprietor. "Most of my tenants are permanent residents."

We continued to climb. We had now come some seven or eight landings.

"It is stuffy," said Boabissia. "I can hardly breathe."

Insulae were not noted for their ventilation, no more than for the luxury of their appointments or their roominess. To be sure it conserves fuel.

"It is hot," said Boabissia.

"You complain a great deal," observed the proprietor.

"It is so dark," said Boabissia. "How can one fine one's way around in this place?"

"One becomes familiar with it," said the proprietor.

"You should have lamps illuminating the stairs," said Boabissia. "I suppose that tharlarion oil is just too expensive."

"Yes," said the proprietor. "But it is also against the law."

"Why is that?" I asked.

"The danger of fire," he said.

"Oh," said Boabissia, sobered.

Insulae, incidentally, are famed for their proneness to fire. Sometimes entire districts of such dwellings are wiped out by a single fire.

"Can we have a lamp in the room?" I asked.

"Of course," said the fellow. "As long as it is tended. But you may not wish to have one much lit. It fouls the air."

"Do you have insurance on this building?" I asked.

"No," said the fellow.

I was pleased to hear that. He would then not be likely to have the building fired to collect on the policy. On the other hand, it was not unusual that such dwellings lacked insurance. This was not simply a matter of proprietary optimism, but also of the difficulty of obtaining it, at least at affordable rates. Most carriers would not accept the risks involved.

We came to another landing.

We heard a noise and the proprietor lifted his lamp. A slave girl was illuminated, on the landing. She was barefoot. She wore an extremely brief tunic, one which was divided to her navel. It was awry. Her hair was in disarray. In the light of the lamp her collar glinted. She flung herself to her belly before us, fearfully yielding slave obeisance.

"She belongs to Clitus, the Cloth Worker, on the floor above," said the proprietor.

The girl trembled on her belly before us.

I saw that if Achiates permitted slaves in his house they must exhibit suitable discipline. They must be well trained.

We continued up the stairs. The girl had had light brown hair, it seemed. When we had passed she continued on her way. We could hear her bare feet for a time on the stairs. She seemed to know them well. In time one can fine one's way around them in the dark. She was doubtless on an errand.

"Oh!" cried Boabissia, on the next landing. "An urt!"

"That is not an urt," said the proprietor. "They usually come out after dark. There is too much noise and movement fro them during the day." The small animal skittered backward, with a sound of claws on the boards. Its eyes gleamed in the reflected light of the lamp. "Generally, too, they do not come this high," said the proprietor. "That is a frevet." The frevet is a small, quick, mammalian insectivore. "We have several in the house," he said. "They control the insects, the beetles and lice, and such."

Boabissia was silent.

"Not every insula furnishes frevets," said the proprietor. "They are charming as well as useful creatures. You will probably grow fond of them. You will probably wish to keep your door open at night, for coolness, and to give access to them. They cannot gnaw through walls like urts, you know."

"Is it far now," I asked.

"No," said the proprietor. "We are almost there. It is just under the roof." "It seems we have come a long way." I said.

"Not really," he said. "We are not really so high up. The flights are short." We then climbed another flight, to the next landing.

"Oh!" said Boabissia, recoiling.

"You see," said the proprietor. "You will come to like the frevets." We watched a large, oblong, flat-bodied black object, about a half hort in length, with long feelers, hurry toward a crack at the base of the wall. "That is a roach," he said.

"They are harmless, not like the gitches whose bites are rather painful. Some of them are big fellows, too. But there aren't many of them around. The frevets see to it. Achiates prides himself on a clean house.

"Ai!" said Feiqa, suddenly, startled, moving.

"Kneel, slave girl," said a young, imperious voice.

Swiftly Feiqa knelt.

"Kiss my feet, female slave," said the voice.

Feiqa was kneeling before a boy, perhaps some eleven or twelve years of age. His face was dirty. He was barefoot, and in rags. I assumed he must live in the rooms somewhere. Feiqa a full-grown and beautiful female, but a slave, put down her head and, doing him obeisance, kissed his feet, and fearfully, and humbly He was a free person, and a male.

"Go away, you disgusting child," said Boabissia.

"Be silent, woman," he said.

"I have a good mind to strike you," said Boabissia.

"Lift your head, slut," said the lad to Feiqa.

She obeyed.

He regarded her. "You are a pretty one," he said. "What do you say? he demanded.

"Thank you, Master," she said.

He then stood close to her and ran his hands through her hair. He then took her collar by the sides in his small fingers and jerked it forward, towards him, against the back of her neck. He then, by the pressure on the collar, forced her head rudely from side to side. He then pressed it up, cruelly, under her chin, forcing her head up. He was exerting his force on her through her slave collar. She would have no doubt it was on her. He did these things, incidentally, with the typical awareness of men who know how to handle women in collars, in such a way as not to injure or threaten the windpipe. Such a thing is never done, unless it is intentional. "A good, solid collar," he said.

"I am pleased that master is pleased," whispered Feiqa, frightened.

"It is on you well, isn't it?" he said.

"Yes, Master," she said. "What does it mean?" he asked.

"That I am a slave," she said.

"Go away," said Boabissia.

"Oh," said Feiqa.

The lad had put his hands rudely within her tunic and caressed her. Tears sprang to Feiqa's eyes.

"Go away," said Boabissia.

"Are you not grateful, slave?" asked the lad.

"Yes, Master," said Feiqa.

"You may kiss my feet in gratitude, slave," said the lad.

"Yes, Master. Thank you Master," said Feiqa, and put her head down, kissing his feet.

"More lingeringly," he said.

"Yes, Master," she said.

The lad then turned about. "It is pleasant to master slaves," he said. "Perhaps when I am older, and rich. I shall buy myself one, much like this one, though perhaps younger, nearer my own age."

He then left.

"He lives in the building," said the proprietor. "He, and some of the others, sometimes in gangs, enjoy playing "Capture the Slave Girl."

"I see," I said.

Feiqa, still kneeling, somewhat shaken, adjusted her tunic.

I smiled. I now had an excellent idea what had happened to the lovely, light-haired slave we had seen earlier on a lower landing, she whose tunic was opened and whose hair had been in such disorder. She had been «captured earlier.

"It is an excellent game," said the proprietor. "It helps them to become men." Many Gorean games, incidentally, have features which encourage the development of properties regarded as desirable in Gorean youth, such as courage, discipline, and honor. Similarly, some of the games tend to encourage the development of audacity and leadership. Others, like the one referred to by the proprietor, encourage the young man to see the female in terms of her most basic and radical meaning, in the terms of her deepest and true nature, that nature which is most biologically fundamental to her, that nature which is that on the inestimable prize, that of the most desirable prey, the most luscious quarry, that of she who is to be captured and mastered, absolutely, she to whose owning and domination all of nature inclines, and without which the ancient sexual equations of humanity cannot be resolved. Such games, in short, thus, encourage the lad, almost from infancy on, to reality and nature, to manhood and mastery.

"What a disgusting child," said Boabissia.

The lad had now disappeared.

She looked at Feiqa. "You, too, are disgusting," she said.

"Yes, Mistress," whispered Feiqa.

"It would be the same with you Boabissia," I said, "if you were a slave. You, too, then, as much as Feiqa, would be at the mercy of free persons. You, too, then, would have to obey, and anyone, as much as she. You, too, as then a mere slave, would have to cringe, and perform, and kiss, even if it were only at the command of a child. You, too, then, as much as she, would have to obey, responding swiftly, hoping desperately to please, while being put through your paces."

"It is this way," said the proprietor. "Up this ladder, now."

"It is stifling," said Boabissia.

"Up the ladder," I said.

She went up the ladder, carefully. She held her skirt together, with one hand, as she could, about her legs. That, I thought, was a note of charming reserve, appropriate in a free woman. I followed her, into the dark opening above. Then I turned about and, on my hands and knees, looked down. Feiqa looked frightened. I do not think she wished to ascent into that darkness. To be sure, it did not seem a pleasant prospect. "Hand up the pack," I said to Hurtha. I was not sure Feiqa could manage it on the ladder. Hurtha removed it from her back, and stood on the lower rungs, lifting it up to me. I glanced at Feiqa. She had backed away. She was near the stairs. She was frightened. She did not wish to ascend the ladder. It frightened her, and that to which it might lead. Certainly it was not much of a ladder. It was narrow, and moved with one's eight. The rungs, of different sizes and unevenly spaced, were roped in place. Too, it would be dark, and hot, in the loft. What would await her there? She was a slave. Feiqa backed away another step. Her hand was before her mouth. I was afraid she might bolt.

"Slave," I said, sternly.

"Yes, Master," she said, and hurried up the ladder.

"Keep both your hands on the uprights," I told her.

"Yes, Master," she said.

Below, Hurtha laughed.

"Disgusting," said Boabissia.

I reached down and helped Feiqa to the loft.

"Here is the lamp," said the proprietor, handing it to Hurtha. He then, the lamp in hand, climbed up to join us.

"Be careful of the lamp," said the proprietor.

I took the lamp from Hurtha and lifted it up. There was a narrow corridor there, with some rooms on the left and right.

"It is the last room on the right," called the proprietor.

"Wait," I said to him. I then, bending down, carrying the lamp, led the way to the room.

I pushed open the door. It was small and low, but it was stout. It could doubtless be well secured from the inside. It would doubtless prove to be an effective barrier. The folks in insulae take their doors seriously. Such a door, plus his own dagger, is the poor man's best insurance against theft.

"Frightful," said Boabissia.

"It is furnished, as you can see," called the proprietor from below.

"It is too small, it is too dirty, I can hardly breathe up here," said Boabissia.

"It is my last vacancy," called the proprietor.

"I cannot stay here," said Boabissia.

"Go inside, and wait for me." I told my party. They bent down and entered the room.

"Is there no light?" asked Boabissia.

"There is a small shuttered aperture on the left," I said, holding up the lamp. "Some light will come through that in daylight hours."

"It is dirty here, and hot," said Boabissia. "I will not stay here." "It is a copper tarsk a night," called Achiates. "Take it or leave it. It is my last vacancy."

"I will not stay here," said Boabissia, firmly. I saw that Feiqa, too, regarded the room with horror.

"I feel faint," said Boabissia. "There is not enough air."

"Open the shutters," I said.

"It is too hot in here," said Boabissia.

"We are just under the roof," I said. "The hot air rises and gets trapped here." "I think I will be sick," Boabissia said.

"Open the shutters," I said.

"This is a terrible place," said Boabissia.

"It is an insulae," I said. "Thousands live in them."

"I will not stay here," she said.

"What do you think?" I asked Hurtha.

"It is splendid," said Hurtha. "To be sure, it would be even better if the temperature were more equable and if there were air to breathe."

"I came to Ar to claim my patrimony," said Boabissia, "not to suffocate and roast in a loft."

"Have no fear," I said. "When the temperature goes down these places, I am told, can be freezing."

"There, you see," said Hurtha.

"I will not stay here," repeated Boabissia.

I then retraced my steps to the opening to the upper level, where the loft had been converted into even more rooms. The proprietor was waiting below.

"We will take it," I told him. I dropped a copper tarsk into his palm. He then turned about and went down the steps, and I, with the lamp, returned to the room.

They had opened the shutters. There was a tiny falling of light, in a narrow, descendant shaft, into the room. In it there drifted particles of dust. They were rather pretty.

I blew out the lamp.

"Surely you did not pay a copper tarsk for this place," said Boabissia. "Ar is packed with refugees," I said. "Many will not do so well as this." "This is a terrible place," she said. "It is furnished," I said. I looked about. Against one wall, there was a chest. There was some straw in a corner of the room. One could distribute it and sleep upon it. There were also some folded blankets. Too, there was a bucket with some water in it, with a dipper in it. That had probably not been changed recently. Then there was a slop pot as well, one for the wastes to be emptied into the vat on the ground floor. It was a long trip. It was not hard to understand how such wastes were occasionally cast from roofs and windows, usually with a warning cry to pedestrians below.

I looked about the room, in the dim light.

There, in one wall, was a long crack. The floor creaked, too, in places, as one trod upon it. I trusted this was merely from the disrepair and age of the boards. Insulae are seldom maintained well. They are cheap to build, and easily replaced. Their structure is primarily wood and brick. There are ordinances governing how high they may be built. Although we had come up several flights, we were probably not more than seventy or eighty feet Gorean from the street level. Without girders, frame steel and timber iron, as the Goreans say wrought in the iron shops, such as are used in the towers, physics, even indexed to the Gorean gravity, is quick to impose its inexorable limits on heights. Such buildings tend to be vulnerable to structural stresses, and are sometimes weakened by slight movements of the earth. Sometimes walls give way; sometimes entire floors collapse.

I put the lamp down on the chest. I put my pack against a wall.

"This is a terrible place," said Boabissia. She knelt to one side, her knees together, in the position of the free woman. She did not sit cross-legged. No longer did she affect the posture of an Alar warrior. She had learned, I think, to some extent, in some sense or other, in a sense that she herself perhaps did not yet fully understood, in a sense that she had not yet herself fully plumbed, that she was a female.

The room was dusty, and dingy.

Hurtha was sitting to one side, cross-legged. He was examining his ax.

The room was hot. It was small. It was, at least, furnished. To one side there was a slave ring. Near it were some chains. Too, among them, opened, I saw an iron collar, woman-size, with its lock ring. This permits it to be fastened on various chains, to be incorporated in a sirik, to be locked about the linkage of slave bracelets, and such. Too, there were some manacles there, of a size appropriate to confine perfectly and helplessly the small, lovely wrists of a female. Various keys hung on a hook near the door, well out of reach from the ring. On the wall, too, near the keys, and implement common in Gorean dwellings, hung a slave whip.

I removed the whip from the wall, and shook out the strands. There were five of them, pliant and broad.

I looked at Feiqa.

She knelt before me.

"This morning," I said, "you erred. It was a rather serious mistake. You were intending to drink from the upper bowl of the fountain, that reserved for free persons."

"Please do no punish me, Master," she begged. "I do not want to be whipped! Let me go this time! Just this time!"

I looked at her.

"I will not do it again!" she wept.

"I am sure you will not," I said. "Take off your clothes."