The crowd was taken aback, for such a wench would scarcely be presented on the meanest block of the smallest market in the city. I myself was startled, for I had seen the girl before and knew her somewhat; this was not her real person; the crowd, of course, would not know that. The auctioneer, as though desperately, tried to do his best for the girl, but soon jeers were forthcoming from the crowd, hissings and shoutings; when her blanket was removed from her, gracefully by the auctioneer, as though removing an expensive wrap from a lady of pearls and sophistication, she slouched so that one might have thought her back had been built in pieces, haphazardly; the crowd cried out in fury.

The auctioneer, apparently losing his temper, responded angrily to some critics in the first tiers, and was himself hooted and decried. The girl seemed to understand nothing. Then, when poked with the slave goad, she called out in a nasal tone, not her own, in painfully, apparently memorized Gorean, "Buy me, Masters." The crowd howled with disgust and laughter. The auctioneer seemed beside himself.

The auctioneer, subtly, or apparently so, then administered the Slaver's caress to her, but she scarcely noted the touch. Then I understood what was going on, perhaps belatedly, for I knew the girl, Red Silk before the black ships, was extremely responsive, and had even been used in the hall of Cernus for the amusement of his Warriors and guards; she had known the caress would be given; she had been ready; she had perhaps, in fact probably, been anesthetized. The crowd hooted and screamed for her to be taken away, while she looked at them in puzzlement, like a bosk cow, scarcely comprehending or concerned. I angrily admired the skill of Cernus. Doubtless, after this, the next lot would be his finest, and the comparison with this girl would be so startling as to cause men to forget the beauties who had preceded her; after this girl, a magnificent actress, the plainest of presentable women would have seemed brilliantly attractive; and a truly beautiful woman or women would be stunning beyond comparison.

"What am I offered for this slave?" called the auctioneer.

There were jeers and cries.

Yet when he persisted, there were some token offers, perhaps by men who wished to obtain a kettle girl for next to nothing; I was not surprised to note that each time a legitimate offer was made, though small, it was topped slightly by a fellow in the robes of the Metal Workers, whom I knew to be a guard in the house of Cernus; at last, this agent of Cernus had purchased her back for the House for only seventeen copper tarn disks. I knew later, perhaps in another city, she would be well presented and would bring a good price.

The auctioneer, as though in the throes of misery, almost threw the poor girl back down the stairs of the block, kicking her bit of dark blanket angrily after her.

He glared at the crowd. "I told you!" he cried. "Barbarians are nothing!"

The auctioneer conferred with a market official, who kept lists of lot numbers and confirmed the bids and final sale with the buyers or their agents at the side of the block. The auctioneer looked dejected when he returned to the center of the block.

"Forgive me, Brothers and Sisters of my City, Glorious Ar," he begged, "for I must bring yet more barbarians before you."

The crowd, or much of it, stormed to its feet. I even heard some angry pounding on the wooden screens surrounding the box of Cernus. But Cernus only smiled. They screamed imprecations on the auctioneer, on the Curulean, even some of the braver ones, anonymous in the pressing throng, on the House of Cernus itself.

"Observe closely," said Cernus to me.

Again I did not deign to respond to the Slaver, now Ubar of Ar.

Suddenly the lights of the amphitheater went out, plunging that great, crowded room into darkness. There were shouts of surprise from the crowd, some screams of startled women. Then, after a moment, the great block, and that alone, was again illuminated with a blaze of light. The crowd shouted its pleasure.

It was as though the sales were beginning again, and now truly for the first time.

The auctioneer sprang to the block and, from the darkness at the foot of the steps, was hurled a chain leash, and then two more. He held them for a moment and then, keeping them taut, stepped back. He met resistance. Below, in the darkness, there came the sudden, startling, savage report of a slave whip, snapped three times.

Then, regally, in black cloaks, with hoods, three women, two girls and their leader, climbed the stairs to the block, backs straight, heads high, their features concealed in the folds of the hood. Each of them had her wrists braceleted before her body, and each slave chain led to the slave bracelets of the one of the girls; the lead girl, probably Elizabeth, was on a somewhat shorter chain than the two behind her, one on each side, doubtless Virginia and Phyllis. Their black cloaks were rather like ponchos with hoods, save that there were slits through which their arms emerged. The length of the cloak, which was full and flowing, fell to their ankles. Their feet, of course, were bare. They stood near the center of the block, their leashes in the hands of the auctioneer.

"These are three barbarians, two White Silk, one Red Silk," called the auctioneer, "all from the House of Cernus, whom it is our hope you will find pleasing."

"Are they trained?" called a voice.

"They are so certified," responded the auctioneer. He then summoned three whip slaves to the block, and each held the chain of one of the girls.

At the auctioneer's command the slaves led the girls about the block, and then brought them again to its shining, shallowly concave center.

"What am I offered?" called the auctioneer.

There was silence.

"Come now, brothers and sisters of Glorious Ar, citizens and gentle buyers of Glorious Ar, and friends of Ar and hers, what am I offered for these three barbarians?"

There was a bid of three gold pieces from the auditorium, probably intended to do little more than initiate the bidding.

"I hear three," called the auctioneer, "do I hear four?" As he said this, he moved to one of the girls and threw back her hood. It was Virginia. Her head was back, and she looked disdainful. She wore the cosmetics of a Pleasure Slave, applied exquisitely. Her hair, glistening, fell to her shoulders. Her lips were red with slave rouge.

"Eight gold pieces!" I heard cry from the crowd.

"What of ten?" asked the auctioneer.

"Ten!" I heard cry.

The auctioneer then threw back the hood of the second girl, Phyllis.

She seemed coldly furious. The crowd gasped. The cosmetics enhanced and heightened the drama of her great natural beauty, but with an insolent and deliberate coarseness that was a gauntlet thrown before the blood of men.

"Twenty gold pieces!" I heard cry. "Twenty-five!" I heard from another area.

Phyllis tossed her head and looked away, over the heads of the crowd, nothing but contempt on her face.

"What of thirty?" called the auctioneer.

"Forty!" I heard cry.

The auctioneer laughed and approached the third girl.

Cernus leaned over the arm of his chair, toward me. "I wonder," he said, "how she will feel when she learns she has been truly sold?"

"Put a sword in my hand," said I, "and face me!"

Cernus laughed and turned his attention again to the block.

As the Auctioneer reached for the hood of the third girl, she turned away and suddenly, though chained by the wrists, darted toward the stairs; the slack in the chain was taken up in her flight and, on the second or third stair down, she was spun about and thrown to the steps, half on them, half on the block. The whip slave who held her chain then hauled her cruelly, on her stomach, and then on her back, to the center of the block. There the whip slave stepped on the chain on the chain fastened to her slave bracelets about six inches from the bracelets, pinning her wrists to the block. The auctioneer, with his foot on her belly, held her in place.