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Musicians of Gor- 2; Caste-Instruments
Topic Started: Oct 31 2010, 10:39 PM (315 Views)
Julalina

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Priest-Kings of Gor

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The contests at the fairs, however, I am pleased to say, offer nothing more dangerous than wrestling, with no holds to the death permitted. Most of the contests involve such things as racing, feats of strength, and skill with bow and spear. Other contests of interest pit choruses and poets and players of various cities against one another in the several theaters of the fair. I had a friend once, Andreas of the desert city of Tor, of the Caste of Poets, who had once sung at the fair and won a cap filled with gold. And perhaps it is hardly necessary to add that the streets of the fair abound with jugglers, puppeteers, musicians and acrobats who, far from the theaters, compete in their ancient fashions for the copper tarn disks of the broiling, turbulent crowds.
Many are the objects for sale at the fair. I passed among wines and textiles and raw wool, silks, and brocades, copperware and glazed pottery, carpets and tapestries, lumber, furs, hides, salt, arms and arrows, saddles and harness, rings and bracelets and necklaces, belts and sandals, lamps and oils, medicines and meats and grains, animals such as the fierce tarns, Gor's winged mounts, and tharlarions, her domesticated lizards, and long chains of miserable slaves, both male and female.



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Nomads of Gor

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Kamchak strode among the wagons, toward the sound, and I followed him closely. Many others, too, rushed to the sound, and we were jostled by armed warriors, scarred and fierce; by boys with unscarred faces, carrying the pointed sticks used often for goading the wagon bosk; by leather-clad women hurrying from the cooking pots; by wild, half-clothed children; even by enslaved Kajir-clad beauties of Turia; even the girl was there who wore but bells and collar, struggling under her burden, long dried strips of bosk meat, as wide as beams, she too hurrying to see what might be the meaning of the drum and horn, of the shouting Tuchuks.
We suddenly emerged into the center of what seemed to be a wide, grassy street among the wagons, a wide lane, open and level, an avenue in that city of Harigga, or Bosk Wagons. The street was lined by throngs of Tuchuks and slaves.

Among them, too, were soothsayers and haruspexes, and singers and musicians, and, here and there, small peddlers and merchants, of various cities, for such are occasionally permitted by the Tuchuks, who crave their wares, to approach the wagons. Each of these, I was later to learn, wore on his forearm a tiny brand, in the form of spreading bosk horns, which guaranteed his passage, at certain seasons, across the plains of the Wagon Peoples. The difficulty, of course is in first obtaining the brand. If, in the case of a singer, the song is rejected, or in the case of a merchant, his merchandise is rejected, he is slain out of hand. This acceptance brand, of course, carries with it a certain stain of ignominy, suggesting that those who approach the wagons do as slaves.



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Saphrar conveyed my wishes to the scandalized Feast Steward, and he, with a glare in my direction, sent two young slaves scampering off to scour the kitchens of Turia for a slice of bosk meat.
I looked to one side and saw Kamchak scraping another plate clean, holding it to his mouth, sliding and shoving the carefully structured design of viands into his mouth.

I glanced at Saphrar, who was now leaning on his yellow cushions, in his silken pleasure robes, white and gold, the colors of the Caste of Merchants. Saphrar, eyes closed, was nibbling on a tiny thing, still quivering, which had been impaled on a colored stick.

I turned away and watched a fire swallower perform to the leaping melodies of the musicians.

"Do not object that we are entertained in the house of Saphrar of the Merchants," Kamchak had said, "for in Turia power lies with such men."



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I was very pleased to enter Turia, for I have always been excited by a new city. I found Turia to match my expectations. She was luxurious. Her shops were filled with rare, intriguing paraphernalia. I smelled perfumes that I had never smelled before. More than once we encountered a line of musicians dancing single file down the center of the street, playing on their flutes and drums, perhaps on their way to a feast. I was pleased to see again, though often done in silk, the splendid varieties of caste colors of the typical Gorean city, to hear once more the cries of peddlers that I knew so well, the cake sellers, the hawkers of vegetables, the wine vendor bending under a double verrskin of his vintage. We did not attract as much attention as I had thought we would, and I gathered that every spring, at least, visitors from the Wagon Peoples must come to the city. Many people scarcely glanced at us, in spite of the fact that we were theoretically blood foes. I suppose that life in high-walled Turia, for most of its citizens, went on from day to day in its usual patterns oblivious of the usually distant Wagon Peoples. The city had never fallen, and had not been under siege in more than a century. The average citizen worried about the Wagon Peoples, customarily, only when he was outside the walls. Then, of course, he worried a great deal, and, I grant him, wisely.

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Kamchak now turned to watch Aphris of Turia.
The girl now approached us, behind the tables, and Saphrar leaped to his feet and bowed low to her. "Honored Aphris of Turia, whom I love as my own daughter," he said.

The girl inclined her head to him, "Honored Saphrar?" she said.

Saphrar gestured to two of the camisk-clad girls in the room, who brought cushions and a silken mat and placed them between Saphrar and Kamchak.

Aphris nodded her head to the feast steward and he sent the acrobats running and tumbling from the room and the musicians began to play soft, honeyed melodies. The guests at the banquet returned to their conversation and repast. Aphris looked about her.

She lifted her head, and I could see the lovely line of her nose beneath the veil of white silk trimmed with gold. She sniffed twice. Then she clapped her little gloved hands two times and the feast steward rushed to her side.



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The girl turned to Saphrar. "Perhaps the barbarians would care to be entertained," she suggested.
I was puzzled at this, for throughout much of the evening there had been entertainment, the jugglers, the acrobats, the fellow who swallowed fire to music, the magician, the man with the dancing sleen.

Saphrar was looking down. He was angry. "Perhaps," he said. I supposed Saphrar was still irritated at Kamchak's refusal to give up, or arrange the transfer, of the golden sphere. I did not clearly understand Kamchak's motivations in this matter less, of course, he knew the true nature of the golden sphere, in which case, naturally, he would recognize it as priceless. I gathered he did not understand its true value, with some seriousness earlier in the evening only that, apparently, he wanted more than Saphrar was offering, even though that might be Aphris of Turia herself.

Aphris now turned to me. She gestured to the ladies at the tables, with their escorts. "Are the women of Turia not beautiful?" she asked.

"Indeed," I admitted, for there were none present who were not, in their own ways, beautiful.

She laughed, for some reason.

"In my city," I said, "free women would not permit themselves to be seen unveiled before strangers."

The girl laughed merrily once more and turned to Kamchak. "What think you, my colorful bit of bosk dung?'' she asked.

Kamchak shrugged. "It is well known," he said, "the women of Turia are shameless."

"I think not," snapped the angry Aphris of Turia, her eyes flashing above the golden border of her white silken veil.

"I see them," said Kamchak, spreading his hands to both sides, grinning.

Seeing that he had apparently discussed its exchange "I think not," said the girl. Kamchak looked puzzled.

Then, to my surprise, the girl clapped her hands sharply twice and the women about the table stood, and together, from both sides, moved swiftly to stand before us between the tables. The drums and flutes of the musicians sounded, and to my amazement the first girl, with a sudden, graceful swirl of her body lifted away her robes and flung them high over the heads of the guests to cries of delight. She stood facing us, beautiful, knees flexed, breathing deeply, arms lifted over her head, ready for the dance. Each of the women I had thought free did the same, until each stood before us, a collared slave girl clad only the diaphanous, scarlet dancing silks of Gor. To the barbaric music they danced. Kamchak was angry.

"Did you truly think," asked Aphris of Turia arrogantly, "that a Tuchuk would be permitted to look upon the face of a free woman of Turia?"

Kamchak's fists were clenched on the table, for no Tuchuk likes to be fooled.

Kamras was laughing loudly and even Saphrar was giggling among the yellow cushions.

No Tuchuk, I knew, cares to be the butt of a joke, especially a Turian joke.

But Kamchak said nothing.

Then he took his goblet of Paga and drained it, watching the girls swaying to the caress of Turian melodies.



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The girl looked at him gratefully and she, with the others, rose to her feet and to the astounding barbarity of the music performed the savage love dances of the Kassars, the Paravaci, the Kataii, the Tuchuks.
They were magnificent.

One girl, the leader of the dancers, she who had spoken to Kamchak, was a Tuchuk girl, and was particularly startling, vital, uncontrollable, wild.

It was then clear to me why the Turian men so hungered for the wenches of the Wagon Peoples.

At the height of one of her dances, called the Dance of the Tuchuk Slave Girl, Kamchak turned to Aphris of Turia, who was watching the dance, eyes bright, as astounded as I at the savage spectacle. "I will see to it," said Kamchak, "when you are my slave, that you are taught that dance."



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On long lines of tharlarion I could see warriors of Turia approaching in procession the Plains of a Thousand Stakes. The morning sun flashed from their helmets, their long tharlarion lances, the metal embossments on their oval shields, unlike the rounded shields of most Gorean cities. I could hear, like the throbbing of a heart, the beating of the two tharlarion drums that set the cadence of the march. Beside the tharlarion walked other men-at-arms, and even citizens of Turia, and more vendors and musicians, come to see the games.

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To one side, across a clearing from the fire, a bit in the background, was a group of nine musicians. They were not as yet playing, though one of them was absently tapping a rhythm on a small hand drum, the kaska; two others, with stringed instruments, were tuning them, putting their ears to the instruments. One of the instruments was an eight-stringed czehar, rather like a large flat oblong box; it is held across the lap when sitting cross-legged and is played with a horn pick; the other was the kalika, a six-stringed instrument; it, like the czehar, is flat-bridged and its strings are adjusted by means of small wooden cranks; on the other hand, it less resembles a low, flat box and suggests affinities to the banjo or guitar, though the sound box is hemispheric and the neck rather long; it, too, of course, like the czehar, is plucked; I have never seen a bowed instrument on Gor; also, I might mention, I have never on Gor seen any written music; I do not know if a notation exists; melodies are passed on from father to son, from master to apprentice. There was another kalika player, as well, but he was sitting there holding his instrument, watching the slave girls in the audience. The three flutists were polishing their instruments and talking together; it was shop talk I gathered, because one or the other would stop to illustrate some remark by a passage on his flute, and then one of the others would attempt to correct or improve on what he had done; occasionally their discussion grew heated. There was also a second drummer, also with a kaska, and another fellow, a younger one, who sat very seriously before what appeared to me to be a pile of objects; among them was a notched stick, played by sliding a polished tem-wood stick across its surface; cymbals of various sorts; what was obviously a tambourine; and several other instruments of a percussion variety, bits of metal on wires, gourds filled with pebbles, slave bells mounted on hand rings, and such. These various things, from time to time, would be used not only by himself but by others in the group, probably the second kaska player and the third flutist.
Among Gorean musicians, incidentally, czehar players have the most prestige; there was only one in this group, I noted, and he was their leader; next follow the flutists and then the players of the kalika; the players of the drums come next; and the farthest fellow down the list is the man who keeps the bag of miscellaneous instruments, playing them and parceling them out to others as needed. Lastly it might be mentioned, thinking it is of some interest, musicians on Gor are never enslaved; they may, of course, be exiled, tortured, slain and such; it is said, perhaps truly, that he who makes music must, like the tarn and the Vosk gull, be free.



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But this matter was dismissed from my mind by the performance which was about to begin. Aphris was watching intently, her lips parted. Kamchak's eyes were gleaming. Even Elizabeth had lifted her head now from my shoulder and was rising on her knees a bit for a clearer view. The figure of the woman, swathed in black, heavily veiled, descended the steps of the slave wagon. Once at the foot of the stairs she stopped and stood for a long moment. Then the musicians began, the hand-drums first, a rhythm of heartbeat and flight.
To the music, beautifully, it seemed the frightened figure ran first here and then there, occasionally avoiding imaginary objects or throwing up her arms, ran as though through the crowds of a burning city alone, yet somehow suggesting the presence about her of hunted others. Now, in the background, scarcely to be seen, was the figure of a warrior in scarlet cape. He, too, in his way, though hardly seeming to move, approached, and it seemed that wherever the girl might flee there was found the warrior. And then at last his hand was upon her shoulder and she threw hack her and lifted her hands and it seemed her entire hotly was wretchedness and despair. He turned the figure to hen and, with both hands, brushed away hood and veil. There was a cry of delight from the crowd.

The girl's face was fixed in the dancer's stylized moan of terror, but she was beautiful. I had seen her before, of course, as had Kamchak, but it was startling still to see her thus in the firelight her hair was long and silken black, her eyes dark, the color of her skin tarnish.

She seemed to plead with the warrior but he did not move. She seemed to writhe in misery and try to escape his grip but she did not.

Then he removed his hands from her shoulders and, as the crowd cried out, she sank in abject misery at his feet and performed the ceremony of submission, kneeling, lowering the head and lifting and extending the arms, wrists crossed. The warrior then turned from her and held out one hand. Someone from the darkness threw him, coiled, the chain and collar.

He gestured for the woman to rise and she did so and stood before him, head lowered.

He pushed up her head and then, with a click that could be heard throughout the enclosure, closed the collar a Turian collar about her throat. The chain to which the collar was attached was a good deal longer than that of the Sirik, containing perhaps twenty feet of length.

Then, to the music, the girl seemed to twist and turn and move away from him, as he played out the chain, until she stood wretched some twenty feet from him at the chain's length. She did not move then for a moment, but stood crouched down, her hands on the chain.

I saw that Aphris and Elizabeth were watching fascinated. Kamchak, too, would not take his eyes from the woman. The music had stopped.

Then with a suddenness that almost made me jump and the crowd cry out with delight-the music began again but this time as a barbaric cry of rebellion and rage and the wench from Port Kar was suddenly a chained she-larl biting and tearing at the chain and she had cast her black robes from her and stood savage revealed in diaphanous, swirling yellow Pleasure Silk. There was now a frenzy and hatred in the dance, a fury even to the baring of teeth and snarling. She turned within the collar, as the Turian collar is designed to permit. She circled the warrior like a captive moon to his imprisoning scarlet sun, always at the length of the chain. Then he would take up a fist of chain, drawing her each time inches closer. At times he would permit her to draw back again, but never to the full length of the chain, and each time he permitted her to withdraw, it was less than the last.

The dance consists of several phases, depending on the general orbit allowed the girl by the chain. Certain of these phases are very slow, in which there is almost no movement, save perhaps the turning of a head or the movement of a hand; others ate defiant and swift; some are graceful and pleading; some stately, some simple; some proud, some piteous; but each time, as the common thread, she is drawn closer to the caped warrior. At last his fist was within the Turian collar itself and he drew the girl, piteous and exhausted, to his lips, subduing her with his kiss, and then her arms were about his neck and unresisting, obedient, her head to his chest, she was lifted lightly in his arms and carried from the firelight. Kamchak and I, and others, threw coins of gold into the sand near the fire.



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Directed by Tuchuks we soon made our way to the throne room of Phanius Turmus, where, to my surprise, a banquet was in progress. At one end of the room, on the throne of the Ubar, a purple robe thrown over his black leather, sat dour Kamchak of the Tuchuks, his shield and lance leaning against the throne, an unsheathed quiva on the right arm of the throne. At the low tables, perhaps brought from various places in the palace, there sat many Tuchuk officers, and even some men without rank. With them, now freed of collars, were exuberant Tuchuk girls bedecked in the robes of free women. All were laughing and drinking. Only Kamchak seemed solemn. Near him, in places of honor, at a long, low table, above the bowls of yellow and red salt, on each side, sat many of the high men of Turia, clad in their finest robes, their hair oiled, scented and combed for the banquet. I saw among them Kamras, Champion of Turia, and another, on Kamchak's right hand, a heavy, swollen, despondent man, who could only have been Phanius Turmus himself. Behind them stood Tuchuk guards, quivas in their right hands. At a sign from Kamchak, as the men well knew, their throats would be immediately cut.
Kamchak turned to them. "Eat," he said.

Before them had been placed large golden dishes heaped with delicacies prepared by the kitchens of the Ubar, tall precious goblets filled with Turian wines, the small bowls of spices and sugars with their stirring spoons at hand.

The tables were served by naked Turian girls, from the highest families of the city.

There were musicians present and they, to the best of their ability under the circumstances, attempted to provide music for the feast.

Sometimes one of the serving girls would be seized by an ankle or arm and dragged screaming to the cushions among the tables, much to the amusement of the men and the Tuchuk girls.

"Eat," ordered Kamchak.



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Assassin of Gor

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At a Paga Tavern, one near the great gate, cheap and crowded, dingy and smelling, a place frequented by strangers and small Merchants, the Assassin took the girl by the arm and thrust her within. Those in the tavern looked up from the low tables. There were three Musicians against one wall. They stopped playing. The slave girls in Pleasure Silk turned and stood stock still, the Paga flasks cradled one. their right forearms. Not even the bells locked to their left ankles made a sound. Not a paga bowl was lifted nor a hand moved. The men looked at the Assassin, who regarded them, one by one. Men turned white under that gaze. Some fled from the tables, lest, unknown to themselves, it be they for whom this man wore the mark of the black dagger.
...
From where she knelt she could see the low-hanging tharlarion oil lamps of the main portion of the Paga tavern, the men, the girls in silk who, in a moment, belled, would move among them, replenishing the paga. In the center of the tables, under a hanging lamp, there was a square area, recessed, filled with sand, in which men might fight or girls dance. Beyond the area of the sand and the many tables there was a high wall, some twenty feet or so high, in which there were four levels, each containing seven small curtained alcoves, the entrances to which were circular, with a diameter of about twenty-four inches. Seven narrow ladders, each about eight inches in width, fixed into the wall, gave access to these alcoves.
...
Putting the bowl down he wiped his mouth on his forearm and looked at the Musicians. "Play," he said.
The three Musicians bent to their instruments, and, in a moment, there were again the sounds of a paga tavern, the sounds of talk, of barbaric music, of pouring paga, the clink of bowls, the rustle of bells on the ankles of slave girls.



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Now that the sport was done some Musicians filed in, taking up positions to one side. There was a czehar player, two players of the kalika, four flutists and a pair of kaska drummers.
The meal was served by slave girls in white tunics, each wearing a white-enameled collar. These would be girls in training, some of them perhaps White Silk Girls, being accustomed to the routines and techniques of serving at table.
...
The Musicians had now begun to play. I-have always enjoyed the melodies of Gor, though they tend on the whole to a certain wild, barbaric quality. Elizabeth, I knew, would have enjoyed them as well. I smiled to myself. Poor Elizabeth, I thought. She would be hungry tonight and in the morning would have to go to the feed troughs in the quarters of the female staff slaves, probably for water and a porridge of grain and vegetables. When I had left the compartment, Ho-Tu preceding me down the hall, I had turned and blown her a kiss. She had been quite angry, kneeling there bound hand and foot, fastened to the slave ring by chain and collar, while I trotted off to have dinner with the master of the house. She would probably be quite difficult to get on with in the morning, which time it would be, I supposed, before I would return to the compartment. It is not pleasant to be bound all night. Indeed, such is a common and severe punishment for female slaves on Gor. It is less common to bind a girl during the day because then there is much work to be done. I resolved that most of my problems in this matter might be solved if I simply refused to release Elizabeth until she had given her word, which she takes quite seriously, to be at least civil.

But Elizabeth, rightly or wrongly, was banished from my mind for the moment because I heard, from a side door, the rustle of slave bells, and was pleased to note that seven girls hurried in, using the short, running steps of the slave girl, arms to the side, palms out, head to the left, eyes averted, and knelt between the tables, before the men, head down in the position of Pleasure Slaves.
...
Now the girls in white tunics began to serve the strong beverages of Gor, and the festivities of the evening began. The Musicians began to play, and the girls in Pleasure Silk, hands over their heads, lifted themselves slowly to the melody, their bodies responding to it as though to the touch of a man.

"These girls are not much good yet," said Ho-Tu. "They are only in the fourth month of their training. It is good for them to get the practice, hearing and seeing men respond to them. That is the way to learn what truly pleases men. In the end, I say, it is men who teach women to dance."

I myself would have spoken more highly of the girls than had Ho-Tu, who was perhaps overly negative in his evaluation, but it was true that there were differences between these girls and more experienced girls. The true dancing girl, who has a great aptitude for such matters, and years of experience, is a marvel to behold, for she seems always different, subtle and surprising. Some of these girls, interestingly, are not even particularly beautiful, though in the dance they become so. I expect a great deal has to do with the girl's sensitivity to her audience, with her experience in playing to, and interacting with, different audiences, teasing and delighting them in different ways, making them think they will be disappointed, or that she is poor, and then suddenly, by contrast, startling them, astonishing them and driving them wild with the madness of their desire for her. Such a girl, after a dance, may snatch up dozens of gold pieces from the sand, putting them in her silk, scurrying back to her master.

Suddenly the girls stopped dancing, and the Musicians stopped playing; even those at the table stopped laughing and talking. There was a long, incredibly weird, horrifying scream, coming from far away, and yet seeming to penetrate the very stones of the hall where we enjoyed ourselves.

"Play," ordered Ho-Tu, to the Musicians.

Obediently the music began again, and again the girls moved to the music, though I could see they did so poorly now, and were frightened.



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As at many of the larger markets, there are Musicians near the block, and a girl is given enough time to present herself well. At the minor blocks in the small houses, or even the minor blocks in the Curulean, sales are conducted with a swiftness and dispatch that gives the girl little time to interest and impress buyers, with the result that even a very fine girl, to her indignation and shame, may be sold for only an average price to an average buyer, who may use her for little more than, as it is said, kettle and mat. This type of thing is at its worst when large numbers of girls must be sold, as when a city has fallen. Then, stripped, chained by the throat, in a long chain of girls, each separated from the other by about ten feet, secured not even by the dignity of a collar but only by a loop of the communal chain bolted or padlocked about her neck, each is dragged up the steps of the minor block, bid upon while a one-Ehn sand clock is turned, sold for the highest bid that comes forth in one Ehn, and then dragged down the steps on the other side, making room for the next girl.

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Beyond the glass I looked into what seemed to be a Pleasure Garden, lit by energy bulbs radiant in its lofty ceiling. There were various hues of grass, some secluded pools, some small trees, a number of fountains and curving walks. I heard the music of a lute from somewhere. Then I stepped back for I noted, coming along one of the curving walks, two lovely girls, clad in white, their hair bound back with white silk; they were quite young; perhaps less than eighteen.

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There were various matches in the pit of sand that evening. There was a contest of sheathed hook knife, one of whips and another of spiked gauntlets. One of the slave girls spilled wine and was fastened to a slave ring, stripped and beaten. Later the Musicians played and a girl I had not seen before, whom I was told was from Cos, performed the collar dance, and creditably. Cernus, as before, was lost in his game with Caprus, this time lingering at the board even long after Paga and full-strength Ka-la-na were served.

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I observed Phyllis Robertson performing the belt dance, on love furs spread between the tables, under the eyes of the Warriors of Cernus and the members of his staff. Beside me Ho-Tu was shoveling porridge into his mouth with a horn spoon. The music was wild, a melody of the delta of the Vosk. The belt dance is a dance developed and made famous by Port Kar dancing girls. Cernus, as usual, was engaged in a game with Caprus, and had eyes only for the board.
...
Ho-Tu pointed with his spoon at Phyllis. "She is not bad," he said.
The belt dance is performed with a Warrior. She now writhed on the furs at his feet, moving as though being struck with a whip. A white silken cord had been knotted about her waist; in this cord was thrust a narrow rectangle of white silk, perhaps about two feet long. About her throat, close-fitting and snug, there was a white-enameled collar, a lock collar. She no longer wore the band of steel on her left ankle.

"Excellent," said Ho-Tu, putting aside his spoon.

Phyllis Robertson now lay on her back, and then her side, and then turned and rolled, drawing up her legs, putting her hands before her face, as though fending blows, her face a mask of pain, of fear.

The music became more wild.

The dance receives its name from the fact that the girl's head is not supposed to rise above the Warrior's belt, but only purists concern themselves with such niceties; wherever the dance is performed, however, it is imperative that the girl never rise to her feet.

The music now became a moan of surrender, and the girl was on her knees, her head down, her hands on the ankle of the Warrior, his sandal lost in the unbound darkness of her hair, her lips to his foot.

"Sura is doing a good job with her," said Ho-Tu.

I agreed.

In the next phases of the dance the girl knows herself the Warrior's, and endeavors to please him, but he is difficult to move, and her efforts, with the music, become ever more frenzied and desperate.
...
The belt dance was now moving to its climatic and I turned to watch Phyllis Robertson.

"Capture of Home Stone," I heard Cernus say to Caprus, who spread his hands helplessly, acknowledging defeat.

Under the torchlight Phyllis Robertson was now on her knees, the Warrior at her side, holding her behind the small of the back. Her head went farther back, as her hands moved on the arms of the Warrior, as though once to press him away, and then again to draw him closer, and her head then touched the furs, her body a cruel, helpless bow in his hands, and then, her head down, it seemed she struggled and her body straightened itself until she lay, save for her head and heels, on his hands clasped behind her back, her arms extended over her head to the fur behind her. At this point, with a clash of cymbals, both dancers remained immobile. Then, after this instant of silence under the torches, the music struck the final note, with a mighty and jarring clash of cymbals, and the Warrior had lowered her to the furs and her lips, arms about his neck, sought his with eagerness. Then, both dancers broke apart and the male stepped back, and Phyllis now stood, alone on the furs, sweating, breathing deeply, head down.

I noted Sura standing somewhat behind the tables. She would not eat with the staff, of course, for she was slave. I did not know how long she had been standing there.

Cernus had watched the ending of the dance, his game having been finished. He glanced to Ho-Tu, who nodded affirmatively to him.

"Give her a pastry," said Cernus.

One of the men at the tables threw a pastry to Phyllis, which she caught. She stood there for an instant, the pastry clutched in her hands, her eyes suddenly brimming with tears, then she turned and fled from the room.

Ho-Tu turned to Sura. "She is coming along nicely," he said.



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Sura's training room lay directly off her private compartment, which might have been that of a free woman, save that the heavy door locked only on the outside and, at the eighteenth bar, it became her cell.
The training room was floored with wood, laid diagonally across beams for additional strength; one twelve-foot area of the room was a shallow pit of sand; against one wall were various chests of raiment, cosmetics and retention devices, for girls must be trained to wear chains gracefully; certain dances are performed in them, and so on. To one side there was a set of mats for Musicians, who almost invariably were present at the sessions, for even the exercises of the girls, which were carefully selected and frequently performed, are done to music; against one wall were several bars, also used in exercise, not unlike a training room in ballet except that there were four parallel bars fastened in the wall, which are used in a variety of exercises. Near the chests of raiment and such were several folded mats and sets of love furs. One entire side of the room, the left, facing the front, was a mirror. This mirror was, as might be expected, a one-way mirror. Various members of the House might observe the training without being noted from behind this glass. I used it sometimes myself, but at other times, sometimes alone, sometimes with others, would enter the room and sit near the back. Sura encouraged males to observe, wanting the girls to sense their presence and interest. And, though I do not think I would have told Elizabeth, her performances with men clearly present, and she knowing it, were almost invariably superior to those in which she did not know herself observed.



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I myself was curious to know what was occurring, but I did not leave the table. I had made it a practice normally to eat beside Ho-Tu, to come to the table with him and leave with him, and Ho-Tu was not yet ready to leave. He had finished his gruel but he was sitting there listening to a slave girl, sitting on furs between the tables, playing a kalika. Several of the guards and staff had left the tables, retiring. Even the girls at the wall had been unchained and returned, after the evening's sport, to their cells. Phyllis and Virginia, and Elizabeth, had long since left the hall. Ho-Tu was fond of the music of the kalika, a six-stringed, plucked instrument, with a hemispheric sound box and long neck. Sura, I knew, played the instrument. Elizabeth, Virginia and Phyllis had been shown its rudiments, as well as something about the lyre, but they had not been expected to become proficient, nor were they given the time to become so; if their master, at a later date, after their sale, wished his girls to possess these particular attributes, which are seldom involved in the training of slave girls, he himself could pay for their instruction; the time of the girls, I noted, was rather fully occupied, without spending hours a day on music. The slave girl sitting on the furs, for the kalika is played either sitting or standing, bent over her instrument, her hair falling over the neck of it, lost in her music, a gentle, slow melody, rather sad. I had heard it sung some two years ago by the bargemen on the Cartius, a tributary of the Vosk, far to the south and west of Ar. Ho-Tu's eyes were closed. The horn spoon lay to the side of the empty gruel bowl. The girl had begun to hum the melody now, and Ho-Tu, almost inaudibly, but I could hear him, hummed it as well.

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A number of Musicians now filed out from the door at the foot of the block and took their places about it, sitting cross-legged on the floor. Those with string instruments began to tune them; there was a czehar player, the group's leader, some kalika players, some flutists, players of the kaska, small drums, and others. Each of these, in his way, prepared himself for the evening, sketching out melodies or sound patterns, lost with himself.

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A girl, wild, clad only in a brief tunic of gray toweling, as though fleeing, ran to the surface of the block, weeping, circling it, her hands outstretched to the crowd; this was done to the music of the Musicians; she turned this way and that, acting the frantic role of the fleeing slave girl. In a moment or two, behind her, a powerful man in a short blue and yellow tunic, the auctioneer, carrying a slender slave goad, almost a wand, climbed to the surface of the block; seeing him the girl turned to flee, and having nowhere to go, fell to her knees weeping at the center of the block, where the bit of toweling was torn from her and she leaped to her feet laughing, her hands wide to the crowd, to their shouts of amusement and encouragement.
Then the auctioneer briefly and expertly displayed the girl, with deft touches of the wand-like slave goad, and began, simultaneously, to raise the first block calls. "Verbina, she is," called he, "who so fears a man that she would flee him, at the risk of death and torture, White Silk and never before owned, yet certified ready for the chain of a master who would use her as she so richly deserves!" The crowd roared with amusement, enjoying the sport of the auctioneer. The first bid was some four gold pieces, which was good, and suggested that the night might go well. Prices of girls vary considerably with her caste, the supply of her general type and the trends of the market. A girl in the Curulean is seldom sold for less than two gold pieces. This is largely, doubtless, because the Curulean refuses to accept women for sale who are not genuinely attractive. In a rather brief amount of time Verbina was auctioned to a young Warrior for seven gold pieces. An extremely good price, under relatively normal market conditions, for a truly beautiful woman of High Caste tends to be about thirty pieces of gold, though some go as high as forty, and fifty is not unknown; these prices, for women of low caste, may be approximately halved.



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The Musicians took up their instruments and, together, as three slaves, women who would be owned by men, the girls danced.
In the crowd men cried out with pleasure; I heard even gasps from women, perhaps amazingly, startled that their sex was capable of such beauty; the eyes of some of the women shone with ill-concealed admiration and excitement; I could mark the quickness of their breath in their veils; the eyes of others seemed terrified, and, shrinking, they looked from the block about themselves, suddenly fearing the men with whom they shared the tiers; I heard the tearing of a veil and heard a girl scream and turned to see her lips being raped by the kiss of a Warrior, and then she was yielding to him; the crowd went wild; here and there there was the cry of a woman in the throng who was seized by those near her; one girl tried to flee and was dragged screaming by the ankle to the foot of a tier; another woman, with her own hands, tore away her veil and seized in her hands the head of a man near her, pressing her lips to his, and in a moment, she lay, robes torn, in his arms, weeping, crying with pleasure.

Four dances the girls danced while the crowd screamed and roared, and then, at an instant, their dances ended, they stood suddenly motionless, splendid, animal, magnificent, inciting

Then they, breathing deeply, stained with sweat, stepped back on the block, and the auctioneer stepped forward.

He did not even call for a bid.

"Five hundred gold pieces!" called the rich man of Ar.
...
The auctioneer signaled to the Musicians again and once more, to the shouts of the crowd, while he held open his hand, not yet closing it, taking bids, the girls performed the last moments of Ar's dance of the newly collared slave girl, who dances her joy at the thought that she will soon be in the arms of a strong master. When the dance ended the three girls, slaves, knelt in the position of submission, back on their heels, arms extended, heads lowered, wrists crossed as though for binding; Elizabeth knelt facing the crowd and, perpendicular to her, on her left and right knelt Virginia and Phyllis, a vulnerable, submitted flower of slave girls.

The auctioneer waited for some minutes for the acclaim of the crowd to subside. The last bid he had received had been an astounding fifteen hundred pieces of gold. To my knowledge never in the Curulean had a set of three girls brought such a price. The investment of Cernus had been, it seemed, a good one.



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Never had I seen the customarily impassive Slaver so elated as on this night, following the sales in the Curulean. The feast was set late in the hall of Cernus and the wine and paga flowed freely. The girls chained at the wall for the amusement of his guards clutched drunkenly, ecstatically, at those who used them. Guards stumbled about with goblets in their hands. The Warriors of Cernus sang at the tables. Roasted tarsks on long spits were borne to the tables on the shoulders of nude slave girls. Girls still in training, unclothed as well, served wine this night of feasting. Musicians wildly, drunkenly, picked and pounded at their instruments.

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There were now no Taurentians in the Central Cylinder. The Taurentians had been disbanded, disgraced and exiled from the city. Only the day before their purple cloaks and helmets had been taken from them before the great gate; their swords had been broken and they had been conducted by common Warriors, to the music of flute girls, a pasang beyond the walls of Ar, and ordered from her environs Saphronicus, their Captain, with other high officers, including Seremides of Tyros, who had replaced Maximus Hegesius Quintilius as leader of the forces of Ar, now lay chained in the dungeons of the Central Cylinder. The palace guard was now made up of Warriors who had been of the party of Marlenus.

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