Who can understand the motivations of men, of oneself?
I was angry with her, she no more than another marked collar slut. Still she had looked well at my feet in the warehouse. Were her bound curves that different from those of other helplessly trussed beauties? What had been in her eyes, as she had looked up at me? She did not even recognize me, I who had brought her to rope and iron! How uncertain she had been, how trembling and frightened, and dismayed, on the block, naked, routinely turned about, presented for the perusal of buyers. I recalled the first time I had seen her, in her quaint, concealing, barbarous garments, and how our eyes had met, and her eyes had widened, and her lips parted, and it seemed she might fall, and she was so frightened, was so much like a startled, wide-eyed, helpless tabuk doe finding herself beneath the gaze of a larl. She had turned about and fled, as though she might have escaped, if we had found her of interest. I had entered her on the list as a possible acquisition, and she was put under surveillance. Shortly thereafter she was entered on the acquisition list, and, from that point forward, though not yet marked and collared, and all unwitting of the fact, she was a Gorean slave girl.
I recalled the first time we had met.
She had seemed so startled, so frightened. In seeing me, did she somehow sense what it might be to be a slave? Had she sensed, even then, what it might be to be owned, to kneel before a man, stripped, chained, marked, and collared, his? Had she understood herself a slave, even then, suddenly, unexpectedly, perhaps for the first time, in the presence of a master?
If I could see her again, I felt I could forget her. I wanted to see her again, if only to force her from my mind, to remove her memory from my blood. Surely she was no different from thousands of others, and less than most.
Surely she was less, even, than the slut kneeling at my thigh.
If I could see her again, I was sure I could put her from me.
Perhaps I could laugh at her, spit upon her, strike her, and then contentedly dismiss her, sending her on her way, a meaningless slave, to whatever fate might await her.
She was worthless. She had not even brought a half silver tarsk off the block. Why then did I remember her?
Last night there had been a fracas in the vicinity of a local tavern. Two men, it seems, had been set upon and robbed. But such things were not uncommon in Brundisium, even in calmer times.
I had not forgotten the offer of the golden stater.
I had inquired and learned that the offer to most was in copper tarsks, to the equivalent of a silver stater. But I had been offered a golden stater. I did not think my sword was worth that much more than that of others. In what way then might I have such value, that others might not? Too, I was curious about the ships, the smaller ships, not the round ships, which were coasting north.
What lay in the north?
Who were the mysterious Pani?
Their agents seemed well supplied with gold, gold at a time when even copper would go far. Ships were being hired, and men recruited, not merely shipsmen, pilots, helmsmen, oarsmen, and such, but men-at-arms, as well, hundreds, mercenaries, many lacking Home Stones, many perhaps indistinguishable from ruffians, vagabonds, brigands, thieves, and cutthroats.
Surely there were no great cities, no wars, in the north.
Of what use would be shipsmen, or soldiers, a small army, in the north?
Her lot number, I recalled, had been 119. The marking, if not cleansed, or washed off, lasts several days. It would probably still be on her, and the others. The slaves, doubtless, would be accounted for, marked off, in terms of their numbers, when put aboard.
Records are kept in such matters.
Many men were going north. Accordingly, slaves, as food and drink, as other utilities and necessities, would be supplied to the camps, the forts, the villages, the towns, or shelters. Gorean men will have their slaves; they will not do without them. It is what women are good for. Let free women take note.
“May I speak?” asked the girl kneeling beside me.
“No,” I said.
She was from Asperiche originally, had been taken by corsairs of Port Kar, and sold south. I