Tribesmen of Gor

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.”

“No!” cried the girl.

“On such a girl,” I said, “brazenly, making it evident to all, they tell the secret, which she is no longer permitted to hide, that she is slave, only slave.”

“No!” she cried.

“Your brand and collar, Alyena,” I said, “fit you well.”

“No!” she wept. I heard her fingers pull at her collar.

“Rejoice,” said I, “that they are on your body. Many slave girls never know them.”

She lay in the dark, twisting, weeping, hobbled, pulling at her collar.

Ibn Saran, watching the yellow-silked, collared slave dance, sipped his hot, black wine.

I saw that he was interested in the beauty.

She bent down, her leg extended and, moving it, flexing it, slowly, to the music, from her knee to the thigh, caressed it. Alyena was good, because, in her belly, though she still did not know it, burned slave fire.

Sometimes she would look at us, her audience. Her eyes said to us, I dance as a slave girl, but I am not truly a slave girl. I am not tamed. I can never be tamed. No man can tame me.

In time she could learn she was truly slave. There was little hurry in such matters. In the Tahari men are patient.

Before Suleiman, now, there lay five stones, three sereem diamonds, red, sparkling, white flecked, and two opals, one a common sort, milky in color, and the other an unusual flame opal, reddish and blue. Opals are not particularly valuable stones on Earth, but they are much rarer on Gor; these were excellent specimens, cut and polished into luminescent ovoids, still, of course, they did not have the value of the diamonds. “What would you like for these five stones?” he asked.

“A hundred weights of date bricks,” I said.

“That is too high,” he said.

Of course it was too high. The trick, of course, was to make the asking price high enough to arrive at some reasonable exchange value later on, and, at the same time, not insult a man of Suleiman’s position and intelligence. To make the first price too high, as though I were dealing with a fool, might result in unfortunate consequences for myself, the least among which might have been immediate decapitation, supposing that Suleiman had had an excellent breakfast and a pleasant preceding night with his girls.

“Twenty weights of date brick,” he said.

“That is too low,” I said.

Suleiman studied the stones. He knew his suggested price was too low. He was merely concerned to consider what they might, competitively, be worth.

Suleiman was a man of discrimination, and taste; he was also one of high intelligence.

It had been he who had organized the trap.

It had been night, when I had first suspected the nature of the trap, the sixth night after the joining of the caravan of Farouk by the escort of Aretai soldiers.

The lieutenant to the captain, high officer of the escort, came to my tent. It had been he who had suspected me of being a Kavar spy, who had urged the killing of me. We bore one another little good will. His name was Hamid. The name of the captain was Shakar.

He looked about himself, furtively, then sat himself in the tent, unbidden, on my mats. I did not wish to kill him.

“You carry stones, which you wish to sell to Suleiman, high Pasha of the Aretai,” had said the lieutenant.

“Yes,” I had said.

He had seemed anxious. “Give them to me,” he said. “I will carry them to Suleiman. He will not see you. I will give you, from him, what they bring in pressed date bricks.”

“I think not,” I said.

His eyes narrowed. His swarthy face darkened.

“Go,” he said to Alyena. I had not yet hobbled her.

She looked at me. “Go,” I said.

“I do not wish to speak before the slave,” he said.

“I understand,” I said. Only too well did I understand. Did he find it essential to slay me he would do well not to perform this deed before a witness, be it only a slave.

He smiled. “There are Kavars about,” he said, “many of them.”

To be sure, I had seen, from time to time, over the past few days, riders, in small groups, scouting us.

When the guards or the men of our escort rode toward them, they faded away into the hills.

“In the vicinity,” said Hamid, “though do not speak this about, there is a party of Kavars, in number between three and four hundred.”

“Raiders?” I asked.

“Kavars.” he said. “Tribesmen. And men of their vassal tribe, the Ta’Kara.” He looked at me closely. “There may soon be war,” he said. “Caravans will be few.

Merchants will not care to risk their goods. It is their intention that Suleiman not receive these goods. It is their intention to divert them, or most of them, to the Oasis of the Stones of Silver.” This was an oasis of the Char, also a vassal tribe of the Kavars. Its name had been given to it centuries before, when thirsty men, who had moved at night on the desert, had come upon it, discovering it. Dew had formed on the large flat stones thereabout and, in the light of the dawn, had made them, from a distance, seem to glint like silver. Dew, incidentally, is quite common in the Tahari, condensing on the stones during the chilly nights. It burns off, of course, almost immediately in the morning.

Nomads sometime dig stones before dawn, clean them, set them out, and, later, lick the moisture from them. One cannot pay the water debt, of course, with the spoonful or so of moisture obtainable in this way. It does, however, wet the lips and tongue.

“If there are so many Kavars about,” I said, “and Ta’Kara, you do not have enough men to defend this caravan.” Indeed, in such a situation, militarily, so small an escort as a hundred men would seem rather to invite attack.

Hamid, lieutenant to Shakar, captain of the Aretai, did not respond to my remark. Rather he said, “Give me the stones. I will keep them safe for you. If you do not give them to me, you may lose them to Kavars. I will see Suleiman for you. He will not see you. I will bargain for you. I will get you a good price in date bricks for them.”

“I will see Suleiman myself,” I said. “I will bargain for myself.”

“Kavar spy!” he hissed.

I did not speak.

“Give me the stones,” he said.

“No,” I said.

“It is your intention.” he said, “to gain access to the presence of Suleiman, and then assassinate him!”

“That seems an ill-devised strategem to obtain a good price in date bricks,” I said. “You have drawn your dagger,” I observed.

He lunged for me but I was no longer there. I moved to my feet, and kicking loose the pole which held the tent, slipped outside, drawing my scimitar. “He!”

I cried. “Burglar! A burglar!”

Men came running. Among them came Shakar, captain of the Aretai, blade drawn, and several of his men. Drovers, slaves, crowded about. Inside the fallen tent, struggling was a figure. Then the tent, as men held torches, at a sign from Shakar, was thrown back.

“Why,” cried I in amazement, “it is the noble Hamid. For give me, Noble Sir. I mistook you for a burglar!”

Grumbling, brushing sand from his robes, Hamid climbed to his feet.

“It was clumsy to let a tent fall on you,” said Shakar. He sheathed his scimitar.

“I tripped.” said Hamid. He did not look pleased as, following his captain, looking back, he disappeared in the darkness.

“Set the tent aright,” I told Alyena, who was looking up at me, frightened.

“Yes, Master,” she said.

I then went to find Farouk. There was little point in his losing men.

We did not have to wait long for the attack of the Kavars. It occurred shortly after the tenth hour, the Gorean noon, the following day.

Not much to my surprise the men of the escort of Aretai rushed forth to do battle, but, seeing the numbers of their enemy, which indeed seemed considerable, sweeping down from the hills, wheeled their kaiila and, abandoning the caravan, rode rapidly away.

“Do not offer resistance!” cried Farouk to his guards, riding the length of the caravan. “Do not fight! Do not resist!”

In a few moments the Kavars, howling, lances high, burnooses swirling, were among us.

The guards of Farouk, following his example, dropped their bucklers to the dust, thrust their lances, butt down, in the earth, took out their scimitars and, flinging them blade downward from the saddle, hurled them into the ground, disarming themselves.

Slave girls screamed.

With lances the Kavars gestured that the men dismount. They did so. They were herded together. Kavars rode down the caravan line, ordering drovers to hurry their animals into lines.

With their scimitars, they slashed certain of the bags and crates on the kaiila, determining their contents.

One Kavar warrior, with the point of his lance, drew a line in the graveled dust.

“Strip your women,” he called. “Put them on this line.” Women were hurried to the line. Some of them were stripped by the scimitar. I saw Alyena pulled by the arm from her kurdah and thrown to the gravel. As she knelt on her hands and knees in the gravel, looking up, terrified, a warrior, behind her, on kaiila, thrust the tip of his lance beneath her veil, between the side of her head and the tiny golden string, and, lifting the lance, ripped the veil from her, face-stripping her. She turned to face him, terrified, crouching in the gravel.

“A beauty!” he cried. “Oh!” she cried. The steel, razor-sharp point of the lance was at her bosom. “Run to the line, Slave Girl,” she was ordered. “Yes, Master,” she cried.

“Why have you not disarmed yourself?” asked a Kavar, riding up to me.

“I am not one of Farouk’s guards,” I said.

“You are a member of the caravan, are you not?” he asked.

“I am journeying with it,” I said.

“Disarm yourself,” he said. “Dismount.”

“No,” I said.

“We have no wish to kill you,” he said.

“I am pleased to hear it,” I said. “I, too, have no wish to kill you.”

“Find Aretai,” said the man, riding by. “Kill them.”

“Are you Aretai?” asked the man.

“No,” I said.

I saw certain of the kaiila being led past. Others were left with their drovers.

There was dust about, raised by the paws of the animals. I saw the girls, standing on the line. There was dust on their ankles and calves and, light, on their bodies. Their eyes were squinting, half shut, in the dust and sun. Two of them coughed. Some of them shifted about, for the dust and gravel was hot on the soles of their small, bare feet. They were all stripped. None left the line. An officer rode rapidly back and forth the length of the line, examining them. He called orders. The first one to be prodded with the side of a lance from the line was Alyena.

This pleased me, that she had been found suitable to be a slave of Kavars.

“Stand there, Girl,” ordered a man.

It did not surprise me, however. She was becoming more beautiful each day, as she, not knowing it herself, and repudiating the very thought, was coming to love her collar. She was a slave. On Gor, sooner or later, she would be forced to face this fact; she would be forced to look deeply within herself; to confront herself, perhaps for the first time, with candor, and uncompromising honesty; I wondered if, at that time, seeing herself, truly, she would go mad, or if, boldly, with joy, she would dare to be what she found that she was; a human of Earth she had been carefully conditioned to imitate stereotyped images, produced by others, alien to her own nature; what Earth most feared was the peril of men, and women, becoming themselves; on Earth it was regarded as horrifying that millions of beautiful, feminine women, in spite of conditioning, wanted to be the slaves of strong, powerful men; on Gor it was not regarded as horrifying but appropriate; indeed, what other sort of woman is worth putting in a collar; one of the most common emotions felt eventually by an enslaved girl, in a slave culture, where their sort, if not respected, is accepted, is, perhaps surprisingly, gratitude. I am not clear what they have to be grateful about.

They are totally under the power of strong masters, and must do what they are told.

Eight other girls now stood behind Alyena, ready for chains. Some six girls had been rejected by the Kavars. “Run to your masters,” cried a Kavar to the rejected girls. In tears they fled from the line. I could see that Alyena was pleased to lead the line. I saw she was pleased that Aya, who had caused her much trouble, had been rejected. Alyena stood, naked, very proud, very straight, waiting for her chains. They would not be put on her, of course.

“It is my recommendation to you,” said the Kavar, “to disarm yourself and dismount.”

“It is my recommendation to you,” I said, “that you, and your fellows, ride for your lives.”

“I do not understand,” he said.

“If you were Aretai,” I asked, “would you have surrendered the caravan without a fight?”

“Of course not,” he said.

His face turned white.

“Fortunately,” I said. “1 see only dust rising in the east. I would not, however, strike due west. That would be the natural path of departure of surprised, startled men. Others may await you there. Considering the extent of the terrain, and the likely numbers that the Aretai can muster, it will be difficult for them to encircle you unless you permit them to close with the caravan. My own recommendation, though it may be imperfect, given that I have not scouted the terrain, would be to depart, with haste, south.”

“South,” he said, “is Aretai territory!”

“It seems unlikely they would expect you to move in that direction,” I said.

“You may always deviate from that course later.”

He stood in his stirrups. He cried out. An officer rode up. Together they looked to the east. Dust, like the blade of a dark scimitar, for pasangs, swept toward us.

“Let us fight!” cried the man.

“Without knowing the nature and number of the enemy?” I inquired.

The officer looked at me.

“What are their numbers?” he demanded.

“I’m sure I do not know,” I said, “but I expect they are ample to accomplish what they have determined to do.”

“Who are you?” demanded the officer.

“One who is bound for the Oasis of Nine Wells,” I told him.

The officer stood in his stirrups. He lifted his lance. Men wheeled into position.

Kicking the kaiila in the flanks, angrily, the officer urged his mount from the camp. The swirling burnooses of the Kavars and Ta’Kara left the camp.

They rode south. I regarded their leader as a good officer.

I rode over to Alyena. She looked up at me. “It seems you will not be chained,”

I said.

“How pleased I am,” she cried.

“Do not be disappointed,” I told her. “As a slave girl you will become quite familiar with chains. You will wear them often, and helplessly.”

“Oh?” she said, pertly.

“Certainly,” I assured her.

She looked up at me. “I would have been the first chained,” she laughed. “I was the first girl taken from the line. I would have led the slave chain!”

“There would have been no chain,” I said. “One cannot march naked girls across the desert. You would have been chained and, individually, or in pairs, put across saddles.”

“Had there been a chain,” she said, “I would have led it.

“Yes,” I said. I lifted her to the saddle.

“And I am not the tallest,” she said. “I am not the tallest!”

“Do you grow insolent?” I asked.

“Of course not, Master,” she said. “But does it not mean I am the most beautiful?”

“Among tarsk,” I said, “even a she-sleen looks well.”

“Oh, Master!” she protested. I placed her in the kurdah. She knelt there. With my lance tip I retrieved her veil from the dust, and put it to the side of her left knee. “Repair it,” I said, “and don it. With it conceal your mouth, which is rather loud of late.”

“Yes, Master,” she said.

I turned to look at the dust from the east. I could see riders now. There were four hundred of them.

“Master,” said the girl.

“Yes,” I said.

“I know that I am beautiful,” she said.

“How do you know that?” I asked.

She knelt there, naked, in the kurdah, the veil by her knee. She straightened herself. She put her hands on her collar. She lifted her head, her chin, proudly. Her neck was delicate, aristocratic, a bit long, as she held it, white.

I saw the close-fitting, obdurate metal, inflexible, with its lock behind the back of the neck, encircling it. Her eyes were strikingly blue, and bright, lively; her hair, long, blond, streamed behind her.

“How do you know that you are beautiful?” I asked.

She shook her head a little, arranging her hair, and then looked at me, saucily, directly, her fingers on the metal at her throat. “Because I am collared,” she laughed.

With the tip of my scimitar I made ready to conceal her again within the kurdah.

The Aretai were nearing the caravan, a pasang or so away, sweeping down upon it.

Now, from the west, too, I could see some two hundred men riding in. Neither group, of course, would find Kavars in the caravan. The plan had been a good one, only the Kavars, apparently, had escaped.

“Is it not true, Master?” she said.

“It is true,” said I, “Slave Girl. Had men not found you beautiful they would have been quite content to leave you free. Only the most beautiful are thought worthy of the brand; only the most beautiful are found worthy of the collar.”

“But how miserable,” she moaned, “that I fell slave!”

“The more excruciatingly beautiful a woman is,” I said, “the more likely it is that she will be put in brand and collar.”

She looked at me.

“Any true man,” I said, “who sees such a woman wishes to own her.”

“On this world,” whispered Alyena, “they can!”

“On this world,” I said, “they do.”

“Poor women!” said Alyena.

I shrugged.

“Master,” she said.

“Yes,” I said.

“May Alyena, your obedient girl, your dutiful girl, be taught to dance?”

“You have not forgotten your young nomad, have you?” I asked.

She looked down, sullenly.

“To be sure,” I said, “it would be difficult to compete for him unless you could dance.”

“I do not even like him!” she cried. “He is a beast! He is a terrible person!

Did you not see how he abused me?”

“In his arms,” I laughed, “he would treat you only as a slave.”

“Terrible,” she wept.

To her indignation I felt her body. It was hot and wet. “Yes, pretty Alyena,” I said to her, “I will have you taught to dance, for in your belly is slave fire.”

“No!” she wept.

“Slave fire,” I said.

I then brushed down the curtain of the kurdah, as she cried out with rage, closing her within.

The Aretai, from the east, and west, lances down, scimitars high, with much dust, crying out, shouting, swept into the caravan. They did not find the Kavars, or the Ta’Kara.

Suleiman was a man of discrimination, and taste; he was also one of high intelligence.

He studied the stones.

It had been he who had organized the trap.

“Twenty-five weights of date bricks,” he said.

“Ninety,” I said.

“Your price is too high,” he said.

“Your price, in my opinion,” I said, “great pasha, is perhaps a bit low.”

“Where are the Kavars!” had cried Shakar, captain of the Aretai, when he had swept into the caravan, his kaiila rearing, his lieutenant, Hamid, behind him.

“They are gone,” I had told him.

Had the Kavars been caught in the trap there would have been a massacre.

Suleiman was a man to hold in respect.

The true worth of the stones, which I had had appraised carefully in Tor, against their best information as to the date yields, was between sixty and eighty weights in pressed date bricks. I was not interested, of course, in driving bargains, but in meeting Suleiman. I had been more than a month at the oasis. Only now had he consented to see me. Recently, too, had Ibn Saran, with a caravan, arrived at the oasis. Some twenty thousand people lived at the oasis, mostly small farmers, and craftsmen, and their families. It was one of the larger eases in the Tahari. It seemed important for me to see Suleiman. As a portion of my assumed identity, I wished to sell him stones. Moreover, with the dates purchased by these, I hoped to have a suitable disguise, as a merchant in date bricks, in moving eastward. I suspected that my being summoned to the presence of Suleiman was not unconnected with the arrival of Ibn Saran at the oasis. He had, I suspected, interceded in my behalf. For this I was surely grateful. He remembered me, of course, from the hall of Samos. Had I not seen Suleiman shortly I would have had to strike eastward myself. Without a guide this would have been incredibly dangerous. The men of the Tahari kill those who make maps of it. They know their own country, or their districts within it; they are not eager that others know it as well. Without a guide, who knew the locations of water, to enter the Tahari would be suicidal. I had offered good prices for guides. But none had volunteered. They protested fear of the imminent war, the dangers of being on the desert at such a time. I suspected, however, that they had been told not to offer me their services. One fellow had agreed, but, the next morning, without explanation, he had informed me that his mind was changed. It would be too dangerous, in such times, to venture into the desert.

Sometimes I had seen Hamid, the lieutenant of Shakar, captain of the Aretai, following me about. He still suspected, I supposed, that I was a Kavar spy but when Ibn Saran had arrived at the oasis, Suleiman had invited me to his presence. I wondered if he had been waiting for Ibn Saran. Ibn Saran, it seemed to me, exercised more influence at the oasis of Nine Wells than one might have expected of a mere merchant of salt. I had seen men withdrawing from the path of his kaiila, standing aside, lifting their hands to him.

Alyena, in dancing, sensed the power of Ibn Saran. It is not difficult for a female dancer, lightly clad, displaying her beauty, to detect where among those who watch her lies power. I am not sure precisely how this is done. Doubtless, to some extent, it has to do with richness of raiment. But even more, I suspect, it has to do with the way in which they hold their bodies, their assurance, their eyes, as they, as though owning her, observe her. A woman finds herself looked upon very differently by a man who has power and one who does not.

Instinctively, of course, to be looked upon by a man with power thrills a woman.

They desire, desperately, to please him. This is particularly true of a slave girl, whose femaleness is most shamelessly and brazenly bared. Ibn Saran, languid, observed the dancer. His face betrayed no emotion. He sipped his hot black wine.

Alyena threw herself to the floor before him, moving to the music. I supposed she saw in him her “rich man,” who would guarantee her a life in which she might be protected from the labors of the free woman of the Tahari, the pounding of grain with the heavy pestle, the weaving of cloth, the churning of milk in skin bags, the carrying of water, the herding of animals with sticks in the blistering heat. I saw her turn, and twist, and writhe, and move, and, on her belly, hold out her hand to him.

Her lessons, which had been intensive, once we had arrived at the Oasis of Nine Wells, had cost little, and had, in my opinion, much increased her value, doubling or tripling it. The modest cost of the lessons had been, in my opinion, an excellent investment. My property had now increased, considerably, in value.

But most credit, surely, had to go to the girl herself. With fantastic diligence had she applied herself to her lessons, and practices. Even so small a thing as the motion of the wrist she had practiced for hours.

Her teacher was a cafe slave girl, Seleenya, rented from her master; her musicians were a flutist, hired early, and, later, a kaska player, to accompany him.

Once I saw her, naked, covered with sweat and bangles, in the sand.

“Have you had to beat her often?” I asked Seleenya.

“No,” said the slave girl. “I have never seen a girl so eager,” she said.

“Play,” said I to the musicians.

They played, until I, by lifting a finger, silenced them. At the same time, too, Alyena froze in the sand, her right hand high, left hand low, at her hip, her head bent to the left, eyes intent on the fingers of her left hand, as though curious to see if they would dare to touch her thigh; then she broke the pose, and threw back her head, breathing deeply. There was sand on her ankles and feet; perspiration ran down her body. “Does your girl please you?” she asked.

“Yes,” I said. “And doubtless, too,” I said, “a young nomad would be pleased.”

She tossed her head, and sniffed. “I have no longer an interest in such as he,” said she. She looked down, and bit her lip. “I know, Master,” she said. “You will do with me exactly what you please, but I would bring a higher price, surely, if I were sold to a rich man.” She knelt in the sand before me, in her sweat and bangles; she looked up, blue-eyed. “Please, Master,” she said, “sell me to a rich man.”

I motioned her to her feet. I signaled the musicians. She danced.

I observed her. I thought it not unlikely this slave might stir the interest of a man of means.

“Perhaps,” I said. I was thinking I might sell her to Suleiman.

I watched her move.

“I have never seen a girl take so readily, so swiftly, so naturally to the dances of a slave,” said Seleenya.

“She is a natural slave,” I told Seleenya.

“In your arms,” said Seleenya, looking up at me, “might not any woman find herself a natural slave?”

“Go to the alcove,” I told her. I was renting her.

“Yes, Master,” she whispered, gathering her silk about her and hurrying to the alcove.

“Continue your practices.” I told Alyena.

“The fact that I can dance as a slave,” said Alyena, moving before me, “does not mean that I am a slave.”

I smiled, and tumid away from her, going to the alcove.

“I am not tamed,” cried Alyena. “No man can tame me!”

I turned. “Kneel,” said I. “Say ‘I am tamed.’ “

Immediately she knelt. “I am tamed,” she said. She smiled.

It was the rebellion of compliance.

“Resume your practices,” I told her.

The musicians began again, and again the girl danced. It was superb. And it was incredible. She did not yet know she was a true slave. What a little fool she was.

I watched her move.

She smiled at me, disdainfully. I considered her blond hair, now wild about her head as, suddenly, she entered into a series of spins. Her gaze focused to the last moment on a spot across the room from her, and then, suddenly, on each spin, her head snapped about, and she again found the focus. Then she finished the spins, and froze, hands over her head, body held high, stomach in, right leg flexed and extended, toes only touching the floor. Then she was again in basic position. Her white skin, in itself, in the Tahari, would bring a good price.

Blond hair and blue eyes, too, in this region, made her a rare specimen. But beyond these trivialities, though of considerable commercial import, was the fact that she was beautiful, both in face and figure. Her figure, though not full, was completely female, beautifully proportioned, and sweetly slung.

She was, in Earth measurements, I would guess, some five feet four inches in height. Her face was incredibly delicate, and her lips. Her face was extremely sensitive, and feminine. It was a face on which emotion could be easily read.

Her lip was swift to tremble, her eyes swift to moisten, filling with bright tears. Her feelings were easily hurt, a valuable property in a slave girl. Too, she could not control her feelings, another excellent property in a slave girl.

Her feelings, vulnerable, deep, exploitable, in her expressions and on her face, betrayed her, exposing her to men, and their amusement, as helplessly as her stripped beauty. They made her more easily controlled, more a slave. I had once seen her handwriting. It, too, was extremely feminine. I watched her dance. Too, in her belly, perhaps most important of all, burned slave fire. She would do quite well. She would bring a high price. Only a rich man, I speculated, would be able to afford her.

It had been a stroke of brilliance, or of fortune, I surmised, to have brought the wench south. I had little doubt she would prove valuable.

“Master!” called Seleenya, the cafe slave girl, the rented girl, softly, from the alcove. She stood behind the beaded curtain. She had slipped off her silk.

“Please, Master!” she wept. I saw through the strings of hanging beads the collar on her throat.

I went to her.

Behind me, as I thrust apart the beads, I heard the pounding of the drum, the kaska, the silence, then the sound, as the flutist, his hands on her body, to the sound of the drum, instructed the girl in the line-length and intensity of one of the varieties of pre-abandonment pelvic thrusts.

“Less,” he said. “Less. There must be more control, more precision. You are being forced to do this, but you are holding back. You are angry. This must show in your face.”

“Please do not touch me so, Master,” she said.

“Be silent,” he said to her. “You are slave.”

“Yes, Master,” she said.

“Try again,” he said.

“Yes, Master,” she said. I again heard the drum.

Seleenya lifted her arms to me, and parted her lips. I touched her.

“Is it the intention of Master to use me slowly?” she said. “Yes,” I said.

“Seleenya loves Master,” she said.

At a languid gesture from Ibn Saran, Alyena lifted herself from the scarlet tiles, gracefully turning from her side to her knees, and then, head back, hair to the floor, slowly, inch by melodic protesting inch, arms before her body, lifted herself to a kneeling position, erect, the last bit of her to rise being her head, with a swirl of her blond, loose hair. Then, looking to Ibn Saran, suddenly she bent forward, as though impulsively, as though she could not help herself, and, hands on the tiles, head down, kissed the tiles at his feet, before his slippers. She looked up at him. I gathered she wanted to be bought by him. He was her “rich man.” He lifted his finger for her to rise. Her right leg thrust forth, brazenly, and then, from her kneeling position, slowly, hands above her head, moving, high, she rose swaying to her feet.

“May I strip your slave?” inquired Ibn Saran.

“Of course,” I said.

He nodded to the girl. To the music she unhooked her slave halter of yellow silk and, as though contemptuously, discarded it. I saw she was excited to see his interest in her. Only too obviously was she interested in him making a purchase of her. The churning of milk and the pounding of grain were not for lovely Alyena. That was for ugly girls and free women. She was too desirable, too, beautiful, to be set to such labors.

I decided I might care to taste the steaming, black wine. I lifted my finger.

The girl in whose charge was the silver vessel, filled with black wine, knelt beside a tiny brazier, on which it sat, retaining its warmth. Seeing my signal, she stiffened; she hesitated. She was white, dark-haired. She wore a high, tight vest of red silk, with four hooks; her midriff was bare; she wore the sashed chalwar, a sashed, diaphanous trousered garment, full but gathered in, closely, at the ankles; she was barefoot; her wrists and ankles were bangled; she was veiled; she was collared. She rose swiftly to her feet. She knelt, head down, before me. She poured, carefully, the hot, black beverage into the tiny red cup.

I dismissed her. Beneath her veil I had not been able to read the lettering on her collar, which would tell who owned her. I supposed it was Suleiman, since she was serving in the palace. The other girl, the white-skinned, red-haired girl, also in vest, chalwar and veil, and bangles and collar, lifted her tray of spoons and sugars. But I turned away. She was not summoned. The girls, white-skinned, were a matched set of slaves, one for the black wine, one for its sugars.

Alyena, now, slowly, disengaged the dancing silk from her hips, yet held it, moving it on and about her body, by her hands, taunting the reclining, languid, heavy-lidded Ibn Saran, to whom she knew, at his slightest gesture, she must bare herself.

He regarded her veil work; she was skillful; he was a connoisseur of slave girls.

I, too, in my way, though doubtless less skillful than the noble Ibn Saran, was a connoisseur of slave girls. For example, the dark-haired slave, she who was one of the matched set, she who was charged with the careful pouring of black wine, was a piece of delicious woman meat, a luscious, if inadequately disciplined piece of female flesh. To see her was to want her.

I had once had a chance to buy her, but, like a fool, I had not done so, carrying her in chains to my ship, to be taken to my house.

I had later sent Tab, one of my captains, a trusted man, to Lydius to buy her, but already had she been sold.

Her whereabouts had been unknown.

She had once disobeyed me, a male. For this she must be punished. I had not bought her in Lydius. Then I had been seeking Talena, to free her in the northern forests, and return her safe to Port Kar, where we might, as I had then thought, renew the companionship. Surely would it have seemed inappropriate to have returned in triumph with Talena, with that dark-haired wench, such a fantastic beauty, nude, wearing my chains, in the hold of my ship. Would Talena not have cut her throat, under the metal collar? And had I freed her would she not, soon, have fallen again to a man’s collar? Her flight from the Sardar had not won her freedom. She, a girl of Earth, had been swiftly caught by Panther Girls, and displayed, tied, roped, to a pole, on the banks of the Laurius, hands over head, ankles, throat and belly bound to it, a beautiful, taken slave.

Sarpedon, a tavern keeper from Lydius, had bought her from Panther Girls. It was in his chains that I had found her, a lowly paga slave in his establishment. She had, in fleeing the Sardar, taken my tarn. Yet, when 1 found her in Lydius, I had not slain her for this act. I had only used her, and left her slave. The tarn had later returned; in fury I had driven it away. She had cost me the tarn; it was worth ten times the cost of her body on a public block. None but its master should it have permitted its saddle! Of what value is a tarn of war who permits a stranger, even a girl, a mere wench, to ascend to its saddle? I had driven it away. When I thought of the tarn I sometimes wanted to lash her beauty to the bone. Yet I recalled that once had she labored, as I, before her flight, her disobedience, for Priest-Kings. I, in my courtly simplicities, my romantic delusions of those times, had wished to return her safe to Earth. She had declined, fleeing the Sardar. It had been a brave act. But it had been not without its consequences. She had gambled. She had lost. I left her slave.

At a signal from Ibn Saran, Alyena drew the veil about her body, and around it, and, with one small hand, threw it aside. She stood boldly before him, arms lifted, head to the side, right leg flexed. The veil, floating, wafted away, a dozen feet from her, and gently, ever so gently, settled to the tiles. Then, to the new melodic line, she danced.

Did the girl, in Lydius, truly think I would have freed her, yielding to her pleadings, I, in whose veins flowed Gorean blood, whose tarn she had cost him? I had not slain her. What a pretty little fool she was! I recalled her pleading that I buy her. Only a slave would so plead. I had not realized until then that she was truly a slave. I recalled, to my chagrin, that once, long ago, we had thought we had cared for one another. I recalled that once, in delirium, in weakness, when poison had burned in my body, I had cried out for her to love me.

But when, long later, after I had learned the lessons of Torvaldsland, I ridded myself of the poison in the cleansing delirium of the antidote, I had not cried out, in weakness, for her love, begging it, but rather, in strength, laughing, had collared her, putting her to my feet and making her my slave. Proud women, their pride stripped from them, belong at the feet of prouder men. She had begged to be freed. She was a slave. And I, once, had been fool enough to care for her.

Once, it was true, she had served Priest-Kings, but then, so, too, had I, and that was long ago. And then we did not know, and she did not know, that she was a true slave, as was revealed in a tavern in Lydius. We had thought her a free woman, pretending to be slave. Then, in a tavern in Lydius, we had learned her slave. It was now out of the question that she, a slave, might serve Priest-Kings. The collar, by Gorean law, cancelled the past. When Sarpedon had locked his collar on her throat her past as a free woman had vanished, her current history as a slave had begun. “She fled the Sardar,” had said Samos to me. “She disobeyed. She is untrustworthy. And she knows too much.” He had wished to send men to Lydius to purchase her, and return her to Port Kar that she might be, under his direction, thrown to urts in the canals. “She cannot be depended on,” said Samos. “And she knows too much.”

“There are better things to do with a beautiful slave,” I told him, “than throw her into the canals, to feed the urts.”

Samos had grinned at me. “Perhaps,” he had said. “Perhaps.”

What a fool I had been to be willing to return such a luscious piece of female to Earth. Had I had my wits about me I would have put a collar on her then and fastened her to the slave ring at the foot of my couch. I could not deny that I was now pleased she was not, in innocuous triviality, ensconced on Earth. I was pleased rather that her beauty was on Gor, where I, and other males, might have access to it. She might have been safe on Earth; she had chosen to be unsafe, as any beautiful woman without a Home Stone must be, on Gor. She would now pay the penalties, and well, exacted of her beauty by the powerful men of a primitive culture. She had gambled. She had lost. I was pleased she had lost. My only regret was that I had not bought her in Lydius, and returned her to Port Kar, to keep her as one of my own slaves. I had thought, at that time, however, that I would find Talena. Talena, unless she, too, were collared, and had no choice, would not be likely to accept such a beauty beneath the same roof with her. If she did not kill her, she would have soon sold her, probably to a woman, or, for a pittance, to the most despicable master she could find. I had not known until Lydius that Vella, the former Miss Elizabeth Cardwell, of Earth, was a true slave.

I glanced casually back to look upon her, kneeling beside, the slender, silvered, long-spouted vessel of black wine, resting over its tiny brazier, she only one of a pair, a matched set, of slaves. Her eyes were angry, over her veil. Her bare midriff, long, between the high, hooked vest of red silk and the low-slung, sashed chalwar, about her hips, some inches below her navel, was quite attractive. To see her was to want her; and to want her was to wish to own her.

Alyena now to a swirl of music spun before us, swept helpless with it, bangles clashing, to its climax.

Then she stopped, marvelously, motionlessly, as the music was silent, her head back, her arms high, her body covered with sweat, and then, to the last swirl of the barbaric melody, fell to the floor at the feet of Ibn Saran. I noted the light hair on her forearms. She gasped for breath.

Ibn Saran, magnanimously, gestured that she might rise, and she did so, standing before him, head high, breathing deeply.

Ibn Saran looked at me. He smiled thinly. “An interesting slave,” he said.

“Would you care to bid upon her?” I asked.

Ibn Saran gestured to Suleiman. He acknowledged the courtesy. “I would not bid against a guest in my house,” he said.

“And I,” said Ibn Saran, “would not feel it gracious to bid against the host in whose house I find such welcome.”

“In my Pleasure Gardens,” smiled Suleiman, “I have twenty such women.”

“Ah,” said Ibn Saran, bowing.

“Seventy weights of dates for the stones,” said Suleiman to me. The price was fair, and good. In his way, he was being magnanimous with me. He had bargained earlier, and had, in this, satisfied himself as a trader of the desert. It was now as Suleiman, Ubar and Pasha of Nine Wells, that he set his price. I had little doubt it was firm. He had cut through much haggling. Had he been truly interested in bargaining and dates I suspected I would not have been permitted to deal with him at all, but one of his commissary officers.

“You have shown me hospitality.” I said, “and I would be honored if Suleiman Pasha would accept these unworthy stones for sixty weights.”

Had it not been for Ibn Saran, I suspected I would not have been admitted even to the presence of the Pasha of Nine Wells.

He bowed. He called a scribe to him. “Give this merchant in gems.” said he, “my note, stamped for eighty weights of dates.”

I bowed. “Suleiman Pasha is most generous.” I said.

I heard a noise from afar, some shouting. I did not think either Ibn Saran or Suleiman heard it.

Alyena stood on the scarlet tiles, head back, sweating, breathing heavily, nude save for her ornaments and collar, the bangles about her ankles and wrists, the armlets, the several chains and pendants looped about her neck. She brushed back her hair with her right hand.

I now heard some more shouting. I heard, too, incongruous in the palace of the Pasha of Nine Wells, from afar, the squealing of a kaiila.

“What is going on?” asked Suleiman. He stood, robes swirling.

Alyena looked about.

At that instant, buffeting guards aside, sending them sprawling, to our amazement, in the carved, turret-shaped portal of the great room, claws scratching on the tiles, appeared a war kaiila, in full trappings, mounted by a veiled warrior in swirling burnoose. Guards rushed forward. His scimitar leapt from its sheath and they fell back, bleeding, reeling to the tiles.

He thrust his scimitar hack in his sheath. He threw back his head and laughed, and then tore down the veil, that we might look on his face. He grinned at us.

“It is the bandit, Hassan!” cried a guard.

I drew my scimitar and stood between him and Suleiman.

The kaiila pranced. The man uncoiled a long desert whip from his saddle.

“I come for a slave,” he said.

The long blade of the whip lashed forth. Alyena, her head back, cried out with pain. Four coils of the whip, biting into her, lashing, snapped tight about her waist. He yanked her, stumbling, the prisoner of his whip, to the side of his kaiila. By the hair he yanked her across his saddle.

He lifted his hand to us. “Farewell!” he cried. “And my thanks!” He then spun the kaiila and, as guards swarmed after him, to our astonishment, leapt the kaiila, catlike, between pillers, through one of the great arched windows of the palace room. He struck a roof below, and then another roof, and then was to the ground, racing away, men turning to look after him.

I, and others, turned back from the window. On the cushions lay Suleiman, Pasha of Nine Wells. I ran to him. I saw Hamid, who was the lieutenant of Shakar, captain of the Aretai, slip swiftly behind hangings, a dagger, bloodied, held within his cloak.

I turned Suleiman. His eyes were open. “Who struck me?” he said. There was blood deep in the silk of the cushions.

Ibn Saran drew forth his scimitar. He did not seem languid now. His eyes blazed.

He seemed a silken panther, lithe, tensed for the spring. He pointed the scimitar at me. “He!” he cried. “I saw it! He did it!”

I leaped to my feet.

“Kavar spy!” cried Ibn Saran. “Assassin!”

I spun about, facing steel on all sides.

“Cut him down!” cried Ibn Saran, raising his scimitar.