I lifted the taper again.
A girl, illuminated, but much in shadows, too, shrank back, half kneeling, half lying.
“Do not be afraid,” I told her, and went on.
Surely several of these were new to the mats, unfamiliar with being illuminated in the darkness by tapers, fearful of the chain on their necks, wary of the switches of masters, women who knew themselves no longer free but did not yet fully understand what it was to be a slave, an understanding which would be soon and perfectly achieved.
She whom I sought, and had considered buying for Pertinax, was she whom I had noted on the chain of Torgus, on the beach, kneeling with others, neck-chained, in the surf and sand, she who had seemed most ready or needful, she whom I thought would be the first to plead for a man’s touch. Sometimes a woman’s igniting ensues as soon as she feels a collar put on her neck, one she cannot remove. Other times it may be a thing as simple as stripping her and binding her wrists behind her body. Sometimes it may be as simple as finding herself slave-naked, on her knees, before a man. Sometimes it may be when she first licks and kisses the feet of a man, when she feels the weight of a chain on her body, and so on. These things in themselves, interestingly, are often no more than keys which open a door which has long imprisoned a distressed and yearning slave. She has in her heart desired to be taken, owned, and mastered. She has never been more free than when most his.
I lifted the taper again, and one of the slaves scrambled, frightened, to her knees, and put her head to the mat, assuming first obeisance position. Her hair seemed sweaty. There were welts on her back.
Her response was in the vicinity of what was expected of her, but was not what it should have been.
When the slave is illuminated, she is to display herself as provocatively as possible. This can vary from girl to girl. Many are the suitable posings of the female slave. Indeed when a woman is put through slave paces, whether leashed or not, what is this but an exhibition, a detailed and sometimes tormentingly lovely display of property? If the fellow with the taper lingers, or seems interested, she then goes to first obeisance position, and begs to be found pleasing. Interestingly there was no coin box on the necks of the slaves, as would be the case with “coin girls” in some cities, usually port cities, or coin dishes beside the mat, as in great camps, and such, in which coins might be left by clients or patrons. Indeed, I had not even given a tarsk bit at the entrance. These slaves were furnished as a perquisite of the camp, to content the men who might not have their own slave or slaves. The rent money given to Torgus for his girls then, as with others, was furnished by the Pani, rather as they might have underwritten other forms of expense, clothing, bedding, housing, tools, weapons, food, ka-la-na, paga, kal-da, and such.
I continued on my way.
She whom I sought, I had learned, upon inquiries, was the former Lady Portia Lia Serisia of Sun Gate Towers, an exclusive district, near Ar’s Street of Coins, where were found most of the banking houses of the city. The name of the enclave was derived from the Sun Gate, one of Ar’s major gates, though it was better than two pasangs from the gate itself, the gate’s name being derived from the fact that it was regularly opened at sunrise and closed at sunset. Many of the larger merchant enclaves were found near the walls, within which were several warehouses. This is convenient for the receipt of goods coming into the city, and for those being sent from the city. Caravans are usually formed outside the walls. Goods from these warehouses, of course, are often later distributed for retailing throughout the city. The Lady Serisia, as we may say for short, was a scion of the Serisii, one of Ar’s older banking families. It was predominantly wiped out in the rising, it seems, for its collaboration with the occupational forces, its extending of credit to them, to meet its payrolls, when the funds for these failed somehow to reach the city, its purchases of great quantities of loot, including women, for later retailing elsewhere, its arranging for the confiscation of rival house’s assets, and so on. For a time it had become the wealthiest and most powerful house in Ar, but then had come the rising. The Lady Serisia, I suspected, might be the last surviving member of the house. Proscription lists tend to be exacting, and Gorean justice, which tends to be expeditious and efficient, tends to pursue such matters with diligence. I did not doubt but what many a profiteer, traitor, and such, burdened impaling stakes within Ahn of the rising. Free women take part in the commercial life of Gorean polities as men do, owning and managing businesses, lending coin, negotiating loans, organizing caravans, investing capital, conservatively, or risking it variously, in real estate, voyages, commodities, and such, in translating goods about to find the most favorable markets at a given time, and so on. To be sure, much of this is done through male agents, as, in theory, such concerns are regarded as beneath the dignity and attention of a free woman. She is supposedly, in her dignity and nobility, above such crass concerns. That she exists, in the glory of her freedom, that she is so different from the shameful female slave, that she adds luster to the city and its Home Stone, is enough; that she be dedicated to refined and tasteful pursuits, such as attendance at the theater, at song dramas, poetry readings, and such, is deemed sufficient. In essence, the free woman, aside from being regarded as a priceless treasure, so different from the slave who, as a beast, may be purchased for a given amount of coin, is considered an ornament to the city, an adornment to her polity. But many grow wealthy and powerful, and others fail, and so on.
I lifted the taper again, now to the left, as I made my way down the aisle, and the woman, actually now a girl, as she was a slave, put her hand before her eyes, shielding her eyes.
It was she.
There was a rustle of chain as she sought first obeisance position.
“Kneel up,” I told her.
She did so. I do not think she recognized me, at first.
“Have you not been taught the way of the mat, girl?” I asked.
“Master?” she said.
“Do you not understand the meaning of the mat and chain?” I asked. “Interest me.”
“I do not know how,” she whispered. “Is my body, before you, a male, not enough?”
I smiled. How like a stupid free woman was she still! Did the free woman not think there was nothing more to attracting a man than that she be a woman? To be sure, the hint of a bosom, the suggestion of the sweet width of hips, within the robes of concealment, was indeed attractive, and even free women understood this quite well, for not all slaves were in collars. Similarly a tone of voice, a turning of the head, perhaps provocatively, the hurried readjustment of a veil, it having somehow become inadvertently disarranged, could turn the knife in a fellow’s belly. Yes, I thought, I suppose she is right, in a way. That a woman is a woman can be a thousand times more than enough, so to speak. Had not nature, in her indifferent judgments, brought these complementarities together? Suppose there were somehow ten thousand randomnesses. Amongst these some would be more likely to result in the replication of genes than others. Is the swiftest of the tabuk not most likely to escape the sleen or larl? How is it that the vision of the tarn can discern the movement of even an urt at a thousand feet? The shark who detects the trace of blood in remote water, will he not be the first to feed? Will not the moth who detects the odor of its female four pasangs away through the warm, night air be the first to flutter to her side? The beast which, somehow, sees fit to defend its young, is likely to have young which will survive it. Amongst all adventitious assortments some embody the future, not all. Yes, I thought, I suppose it is enough for the female to be a female. Something in that luscious configuration will trigger a genetic response selected for over millennia. From the point of view of rationality one shape is presumably little different from another. What is to choose from between the circle and triangle, but blood and time are attuned to a different geometry.