At the Sardar Fair of En’Kara III       

“Are they slaves, Master?”

Scipio Metellus turned to the slim red-headed slave next to him. She was leaning forward to rest her arms on the top of the plank fence surrounding the green field just outside the grounds of the Fair of En’Kara. She was resting her chin on her hands.

“No, they are not little one, but you are. It is not for you to comment on Free Women?” The reproof was kindly, not usually a characteristic of the Slaver Scipio Metellus towards collared and branded women.

Still the young woman persisted. “Are you sure, Master? They are clad only in short sleeveless tunic, with bare legs and feet?” The young slave sounded genuinely puzzled.

Scipio ruffled the red curls of the slim slave.

“They are prizes, little one. There are two towns, alike in dignity, but dependent on each other, so consequently they hate each other. Tarn Hill City cuts and prepares timbers from the Northern Forest. Tarn Hill Port, ships the timber down the river. Each needs the other, and each five years they negotiate the taxes the Port charges.”

The slave turned a puzzled face to her master.

“But why do these Free Women stand on a platform, like they are about to be sold?”

“To settle the dispute on the level of fees, ten young men from each town will try to capture the ten women from the other town. See that pit over there?”

“Yes, Master.”

“The men from the same town as these young women, will try to catch the young women from the other town and put them in that pit. If they can’t escape, they become the captives of the men who catch them. The first town to catch all the young women of the other town wins. If Tarn Hill City wins, the taxes on the timber will be lower; if Tarn Hill Port wins, the taxes will be higher. It is because of the great advantage to their towns that these young women have volunteered to risk slavery. It is a high honour to them that they were selected, that they had the form and beauty to be prizes. So, they display themselves as prizes, hoping that they survive to go back home.”

The slim red-haired slave shook her curls.

“I don’t understand all this, Master. When will the contest take place?”

“You are very curious”

The slave nodded, “Yes Master. It is a whole big world since I became a slave. I knew little when I was free.”

“The contest will be on the last day of the Fair. That will allow the most time of the placing of wagers as to the winners.”

The Redhaired girl had been a slave for about thirty days.

Her introduction to slavery had been traumatic. The girl now known as Beaker was the daughter of a potter in the City of Aetna. She had lived a sheltered life with her mother and father on a quiet street, the Street of Potters, in the craft castes section of Aetna just inside the Salt Gate. The Salt Gate led to the resources needed by the Craft Guilds of Aetna. The clays for potters, the salts for glazes and preparing and storing food, the minerals for the metal workers and smelters, all came by the Salt Gate. It was the gate for workers, for primary merchants, for local trade.

Not many female slaves came by the Salt Gate and that was important for the mother of the red-haired girl. For red-haired females faced the burden of a reputation on Gor. They were considered to be excessively sensual, especially prone to slave urges, sluts and whores for the most part. The girl’s mother and her companion, the potter, had concealed as best they could their daughter’s affliction. They had sheltered her as much as possible from the open honest sexuality of Gor; its acceptance of gender roles. She was restricted in the streets she could visit. She was not allowed to pass the corner where the local Paga Tavern sat, with its naked girls displayed outside. She was not allowed to stray down the street of brands. The family only attended the local temple of the Priest-Kings, not the main establishment in the Aetna’s main plaza by the Administrator’s Cylinder. She lived a quiet life, helping keep the home that was one side of the Pottery shop. The shop opened onto a main street, the big shutter of the sales counter opening when the shop was open. Their home at the back opened on a quieter street.

On the early morning of the day that Aetna fell by total surprise to the forces of Vesuvium, she had been up early to light the fires in the kitchen so her father could have his breakfast. Then she had lit the fires in the kiln, for it was to be a firing day tomorrow and the kiln needed time to come to heat. It was just as she was heaping the coals into the bottom of the kiln that she heard the shouting. It was barely dawn.

The gates had been opened to the forces of Vesuvium by traitors, and the army of the enemy poured in. She peeked out the front of the shop. She saw fearsome men, in helmets, Y-fronted with red crests carrying spears red with blood. They chased down a girl and man running, speared the man and ripping the clothes from the girl in the streeted putting her to use, raping her in front of the shop of Ambocrates, the amphora maker.

She heard a crash from behind her. She ran back into the home part of their building. She saw her father crumpled in the corner, red blood coming from his shoulder. There were four men, all in the metal helms. The one in the red tunic seemed the leader, the other three were of the militia of Vesuvium. They had five naked girls with them. The girls had rope looped around their necks binding them together. They had their hands tied behind their backs. As the girl watched, her mother was stripped, and the man in the red tunic threw her to the floor. She watched her mother suffer slave rape.

The fall of a city is a terrible thing. As a second man moved to assault again her mother, the girl let out a peep. It was her undoing. She was discovered in her hiding place and dragged into the centre of the room. There she was stripped, the red hair on her head and at her crotch drawing admiring glances. As she was thrown to the floor beside her mother, she heard her father groan and try to stand and reach for a sword.

Father was struck, his sword taken from him. The man in the red tunic was going to kill him with his own sword!

Then He came in. He was tall and broad. The girl cried. More trouble. The man in blue and yellow had a whip in his belt, and a staff in his hand. He struck up the sword of the man in the red tunic.

“No, you fool. Stop. Look around. This man is a genius, an artist, look at the quality of his work. He must be taken to Vesuvium to adorn the city with his work not killed in a fury.”

The man in the red tunic sneered. “And who are you? Who are you to give orders here? This is our booty, our house to loot. Go find yourself another house to loot.”

The large man whirled his staff so quickly it seemed a blur. He struck the warrior in the red tunic on the head. The man fell as if struck by lightning or the flame death of the Priest-Kings.

“I am Scipio Metellus. I have rights here, first call on the first tenth of all women. And some right to some booty as well.”

The other three men stepped back. Scipio Metellus walked over to the shelves. He took an intricately carved piece of tusk, a gift to the girl’s mother from her father and put it into his pouch. He picked a beaker of stoneware, of exquisite shape and curve, a piece by her father.

Scipio spoke again.

“There is better loot here than almost anywhere in the city, save the treasury of silver and gold. Pack that away and you will be richer than most when you get back to Vesuvium.”

He continued. “Patch the man’s wounds, take the woman, she will bring a good price.”

He looped a length of rope around the girl’s neck.

And that was the last that the girl saw of her parents, but at least they were alive: saved by the intervention of the big man in blue and yellow. Naked, her hands secured behind her, a rope collar on her neck for the next six hours she heeled Scipio Metellus as he strode through the fallen city. She saw things that day; her city looted, men lying dead in the streets, women violated with their first slave rapes. It was the end of a city. Aetna was looted and despoiled, the survivors enslaved.

At the end of the day, she stumbled behind Scipio Metellus, footsore and beyond crying into his camp. He handed the end of the rope to a one-legged man standing beside a wagon, with magnificently carved woodwork.

“Feed her, give her water; then collar and brand her. Then place her in a kennel in my wagon. I don’t want to lose her, Longinus.”

“You want to keep this scrawny thing, Scipio? Her boobs are small; her hips are not as full and womanly as the markets like. Why her?”

Scipio grinned. “I see potential in her, Longinus. Make sure she ends up in a kennel in my wagon. I don’t want to lose her.”

He ruffled her red hair, and taking a candy from his pouch, he placed it in her mouth.

The iron that burned her thigh was hot; the mark it made was painful. The one-legged man, Longinus, gave her something to bite down on when she was marked, then carried her to the wagon of Scipio Metellus and placed her in a kennel.

“The boss says your name is Beaker now. Got that, you are now Beaker.”

She looked up at him through the bars.

“Yes Master.”

Alone and deprived of all she had known, her little world gone, she cried herself to sleep.

Except for being removed from the kennel once a day for exercise and relief she remained in the wagon for nearly thirty days. Her new master was too busy to deal with her. He only appeared in the wagon to sleep. Whenever she was taken out of the wagon, she saw a vast number of women, naked and collared. Men were going from group to group, sorting and arranging. There was a twenty-day forced march to the Sardar Fair. The men of Scipio Metellus mercilessly drove the herd of women on.

“Faster! Keep in step! Walk or die! We have no time for stragglers! You want to bring a good price; to be sold to a Master who will cherish you. Faster!”

Every evening when Beaker had her precious thirty minutes outside the cage she saw women being branded, women being collared, women being put to use. When she was in the kennel, she could see, on a shelf across from her, the carving given by her grandfather to her mother, and beside that, the beaker made by her father, the beaker that gave her her name.

Three days after she was placed in the kennel, another woman joined her. She was high caste, and older, but was kind to Beaker. She stroked Beaker’s hair; she soothed her fears. While Beaker had led a sheltered life, the new woman, who Scipio had named Gold Key had lived a High Caste life of sophistication. She spoke of the exciting new life ahead of them.

“Forget about the past, young one,” she said. “Our old lives are gone; nothing can bring them back.” She described for Beaker the delights that a slave girl could experience delights that were beyond a Free Woman’s comprehension. Gold Key had been Companied three times and had a couple of lovers in between. One lover had been a Warrior. She had had to kneel before she had slept with him.

“I believe he wanted to collar me,” she said, “but he was killed on a raid.”

Gold Key had bought lots of slaves for her household and set up many parties for her Companion; parties she could not attend herself.

“But I peeked through the curtains, the slave girls seemed happy. And I bought the first slaves for each of my sons when they were young. Experienced kajirae for their first conquests. And I went with both my boys when they sold their first slaves; and bought their own next girls; girls more their own ages, girls they chose themselves. I was proud of my boys. And of both my girls too, they made good Companions for their men. But that is all past. You and I are collared now, we must look forward.”

Beaker was comforted; the woman was almost like a second mother. She told Beaker of the things slaves had to do; Beaker was first shocked, then excited. Some of these things she had never heard of! So Beaker looked forward not back. She was excited to see new things, not regretting the past. On the trip to the Sardar Fair, Scipio Metellus had no time for them, he was busy with his organizing and sorting. There is a difference between a highly successful slaver like Scipio and one who scrapes by, selling a girl or two from slave ledge in poor part of a city; it is hard work and discipline.

The entrance to the Fair was spectacular. Scipio’s wagon led his caravan, Beaker and Gold Key were displayed on poles at the front of the moving house. As the caravan’s route curved, behind them, Beaker could see the marching lines of the slaves of Scipio Metellus.

All those women, she thought, all those naked collared women, with their chests stuck out, and I was picked to be displayed on the wagon. The once sheltered girl was now full of the pride of a slave, displayed for the joy of men.

Each day at the Fair, the number of women in Scipio’s camp diminished as he successfully sold off his wares. Finally, all the women who were to be sold were gone. Beaker and Gold Key were again hoisted up on the display poles as Scipio paid off the men he had hired for the trip. One hundred spearmen received silver tarsks, and then as a surprise bonus, some kajirae who had already been enslaved when Aetna fell; girls they could enjoy and then sell. Likewise, twenty of the Riders of High Thalarion were paid off.

Finally only Scipio’s own retainers remained: Twenty Riders of the High Thalarion, and the ten men who handled the five wagons and their bosk teams. These men answered to the one-legged wagon master, Longinus.

Scipio turned to Gold Key. “Tomorrow, you will accompany me as I walk through the Fair. It is good to be heeled by a beautiful slave. You, Beaker will be displayed on a wagon wheel, then heel me on the day after.”

In the morning, Beaker had been made to kneel with her back to one of the front wheels of Scipio’s wagon. Her ankles, on the other side of the wheel had been tied together forcing her knees and thighs far apart. She remained thus for the six hours her Master was at the Fair. She saw women being used in the camp. She understood better then the different positions that women can be used in; things Gold Key had described for her. She was not ashamed of her nude state; she had not been clad for thirty days. Twice she watched, fascinated, as one of the men relieved himself near her. She got a good look at the organ that would rule her life as a slave. She longed to be opened, if she was to be a slave, then she wanted to be a full one.

Beaker was untied from the wheel and kenneled in the wagon when Scipio and Gold Key returned. She remained in the kennel while Scipio put his other slave to use. Gold Key had cried out as she yielded to her master. Beaker heard her cry out many times.

So when the day began, Beaker was excited to be put on a leash to be led through the Fair. Gold Key had kissed her, and tied a scrap of yellow silk around her hips, knotting it on the left hip.

“You will be so happy to see the Fair, it is so exciting.”

The Fair was exciting! So much to see, there were peoples she had not dreamed of living in her narrow street in Aetna. Smells she had never imagined. Spices and foods from all over Gor, Slaves of all kinds, Pani from across the wide Thassa, black slaves from Schendi, brown skinned girls from the Tahari, olive skinned girls from cities of the coast. Even a few red-headed girls like her. Her red curls hung down her back, she shifted her hips so the silk rode up a bit, displaying the fine thin red hair at her crotch. She saw another red-haired girl notice what she was doing and that girl gave her a big smile.

They had spent hours walking the Fair, Master and Slave, and had ended up at this enclosure, where two days hence a game of girl-catch was to be played.

Another man strolled up to Scipio Metellus and the slave he had named Beaker, because her father had been a potter.

“Tal, Scipio Metellus.”

“Tal, Atticus of Ar.”

Atticus nodded towards Beaker. “You have a different slave with you today, my friend.”

“This one is called Beaker, she is the other slave I took away from Aetna when it fell. She is young and untrained, but I think she will be worth gold once trained. She is still white silk.”

Scipio nudged Beaker, who remembered to fall to her knees before a Free Man.

Scipio nodded to a man dressed in Slaver Caste Colors who was staring intensely at the Free Women displaying themselves as prizes.

“Who is he, I saw you talking to him earlier. He looks prosperous but I don’t know him.”

Atticus shook his head.

“He is an upstart from Victoria. His name is Atilas. He had the House of Chains there.”

Scipio furrowed his brow. “The House of Chains? I thought that was Spectus?”

Atticus answered, “There were three partners, Spectus, this Atilas, and a women, the Lady Ragenta. Spectus went to Brundisium and this Atilus and the Lady Ragenta travelled to Ar to set up a branch there. That is where I encountered him. Funny thing, he and the Lady left Victoria as partners, and she arrived in a collar.”

Scipio smiled. It sometimes happened that way with female Slavers. As they worked with the slaves their female side overcame their business sense and they identified with the slaves so much they became slavish. The only thing then was to collar them.

Atticus went on. “Funny thing though , he can’t sell her.”

“Whyever not. If she is collared and branded, she can be sold.”

Beaker, the red-haired slave, collared and branded herself, listened to the discussion. It did not bother her hearing about the fall of Free Women.

Atticus patted Beaker on her red head. She purred.

“Because she knows too much. In an lot of ways she was the wise business head among the three, she knows all their costs, their profits, their sources of supply. Another House would snap her up as soon as she arrived on the block. Mine for example, or any of the other major Houses of Ar. It would be a competitive advantage to find out what she knows. She Atilus is stuck with inventory he can’t sell. He has to feed her, and kennel her, having her take up space, but he can’t profit from her. Even if he sells her far away, the network of Slavers would find out, someone would profit at Atilus’s expense. So she takes up room, and eats her head off,”

Scipio nodded. “I am sure Atilus extracts some satisfaction from her though.”

Atticus smiled. “One can always extract some satisfaction from a slave.”

( See Paladin's Tales and Stories, the link is in the blog roll, for more on Atilus and Ragenta. The next After the Bighorn Chapter will be posted this coming Tuesday; the next Scipio Metellus chapter will be next Friday.)