I had been sold.

He then thrust me toward the stairs and I, stumbling, descended the stairs, on the side opposite from that from which I had ascended the block.

"Girl 129!" I heard him call.

At the foot of the block a man from the house took me by the wrist and pulled me to a chain. Slave bracelets were fixed on the chain. He thrust me behind the last girl on the chain; she was kneeling, braceleted to the chain, facing away from me; her head was down. "Kneel," he said; I knelt; he fastened my wrists in the dangling slave bracelets, attached to the chain; I then knelt at the chain, secured; in time another girl who, too, had been sold, was placed on the chain behind me; and then another, and another. I knelt, locked in the bracelets, secured to the chain. I had been sold.

14

Two Men

"Paga, Master?" I inquired.

He waved me away.

I turned from him with a rustle of bells, looking about me. The girl in the sand was quite good. It was still early in the evening, the sixteenth hour. She scarcely moved, swaying, ankles close, arms over her head, wrists back to back, palms turned out. Yet she subtly danced, controlled by the music of a single flute. Some men watched her. We had five dancers at the Belled Collar. I thought all were fine. The best would perform later in the evening. Four performed a day, and one would rest. I could not dance. There was only one musician at the side of the sand. Others would join him later. Their leader was Andronicus, who played the czethar.

"Paga," called a man.

I hurried to him, carrying the large bronze vessel of paga, on its strap about my shoulder.

I knelt and filled his cup. He did not order me to an alcove. I rose and, carrying the vessel of paga, went to the door of the tavern, to step outside, to taste the air. As a paga girl I came with the purchased cup of fluid, but, of course, I, like the others, was only a lovely option; whether I served in an alcove depended entirely on the whim and appetite of the customer. Many men, naturally, came to the tavern only to meet their friends, to talk and drink. Some nights I had not been used at all. I had been, of course, completely available. As paga girls went I was popular, and my master, Busebius, was not disappointed in me. He had made, I gather, a good buy on me. More than many of the girls had I squirmed in the alcoves, sometimes chained, writhing under the touch of masters, whimpering and crying out the submission I could not help but yield. I knew there were men who came back particularly for me. I had brought business to the tavern. The rules of the tavern with respect to the slave girls were simple. The customer could select any serving slave for his pleasure, providing he had paid the price of the paga; he could pick the girl of his interest, whether she had poured him the paga in question or not; to be sure, the customer usually commanded his paga from the wench who had caught his fancy, if he was planning on using her; if he was not interested in the having of a slave girl he would usually call his paga from the closest wench; each cup of paga entitled him to take one slave to the alcove; thus, theoretically, he might use several in one evening; these arrangements, however, terminated with the dawn, and the closing of the tavern; he might not, so to speak, save his cups for later. Dancers must be separately negotiated for.

I stepped outside the tavern, to drink in the pure air of Gor. We were permitted outside the tavern.

I stood beneath the sign of the Belled Collar, which swung above me, a large collar, from which hung bells.

"Greetings, Teela," said a man, passing by.

"Greetings, Master," I said.

I was Teela, a paga slave of the Belled Collar. That could be read, I understood, on the close-fitting steel collar I wore, a ten-hort collar.

I looked out, over the bridge, to the towers and cylinders beyond, and to the sunset over the walls of Ar. I saw the tracery of the bridges against the sky, the people moving about on them. Far below, in the streets I could see carts and wagons, too, being drawn by tharlarion. I looked up. One or two tarnsmen, on patrol, I saw in the sky. I thought of Clitus Vitellius.

"Greetings, Teela," said the girl who now stood beside me, who had come, like myself, from the tavern. She, like I, wore slave bells on her left ankle, brief, parted yellow silk, the house collar. We stood barefoot on the bridge.

I did not speak to her, but looked away.

"I am sorry I fought you for the candy," she said.

"I won it," I said, angrily.

"Yes, Teela," she said. Then she said, angrily, "It fell closest to me. It should have been mine."

Busebius, our master, sometimes, before ordering us to bathe and prepare ourselves for the floor, scattered a handful of hard candies among us. They were very precious, and, on the tiles of the slave room, we fought for them.

I looked at Bina.

I had leaped for the candy. It had been snatched by her hand. I had torn open her hand and thrust it in my mouth. She had struck me and pulled my hair. Rolling, wildly, screaming, we had bitten, clawed and kicked at one another. Then Busebius had whipped us apart. We had shrunk back from one another, cringing, punished slave girls.

"How foolish you looked," laughed Busebius. We reddened. We were only girls. Did he expect us to fight like men? How small and weak we felt.

"Hurry now to the baths," he said, "and thence to the room of preparation, for you must be soon upon the floor."

"Yes, Master," we had said.

Standing outside the door to the Belled Collar, we stepped back, and knelt.

Bran Loort, who had once been of Tabuk's Ford, carrying a low table, entered the tavern. He performed odd jobs about the tavern in return for his keep and a tarsk a week. We had knelt because he was free. Yet I wondered if in his heart he was free. He seemed a downcast, defeated man. He carried the table past us, which he had taken to the shop of a carver and enameler, to be inlaid with a Kaissa board. He was now returning it to the tavern. He slept in the tavern overnight. He was entitled to the use of the girls of the tavern, as it was his place of employment. Yet he had never used one of us. I feared he could not do so. I recalled he had been defeated by Thurnus and then, stripped, thrust before a rape-rack in the village on which a girl, naked and helpless, awaited him. "I give you my permission," had said Thurnus. Bran Loort had looked down. "Go ahead," had urged Thurnus. "Take her!" "I cannot," had whispered Bran Loort. He had been a defeated man. He had turned away from the rack and bent down to pick up his tunic. He had gone to the gate and it had been opened for him. He had left the village of Tabuk's Ford. He had found his way to Ar. He did small work about the tavern.

Bina and I regained our feet.

"I am sorry I fought you for the candy," she said.

"I am stronger than you," I said. "You should have given it to me."

"No," she said.

I did not speak to her.

"But it is embarrassing to fight before the men as a slave," she said.

"The candy," I said, "belongs to the girl who is strong enough to take it."

"You are the only girl I know here," said Bina. "We were once both the slaves of Clitus Vitellius. We have shared a chain before. I want to be your friend."

"You, too," I said, looking at Bina, Slave Beads, "are the only old friend I have here."

"Let us be friends," she said.

"We are friends," I said.

"Good," she said, hugging me.

I hugged and kissed her.

"But the candy was mine," I said.

"Slave!" she hissed, her eyes flashing.

"Slave!" I cried.

"Hurry inside," said Busebius, standing at the door. "Do you think I bought you to stand outside like free ladies and sniff the air!"