Free Rogue of Gor by John Norman Page B

brunette in, a brief tunic, collared, carrying a bundle on her head.
    I stepped aside as a string of eight peasants, with bundles of Sa-Tarna grain on their shoulders, made their way down toward the wharves.
    "Now that is what I call really hot meat," a man was saying.
    I heard a woman gasping. I looked down. To one side, on her back on the boards, her knees drawn up, her left ankle roped to her left wrist, her right ankle roped to her right wrist, there lay a slave girl. "Please, Masters," whimpered the girl, looking up. "Touch me, Masters." A fat fellow sat on a small stool. He held a light chain, which was attached to her collar. She had been cruelly aroused, but not satisfied. "Please, Masters," she begged. "A tarsk bit for her use," said the fat fellow. I looked down upon her. Then I heard a tarsk bit thrown into the copper bowl beside her. A leather worker pushed past me, crouching beside the slave. Piteously she lifted her body to him.
    "Jewelry!" I heard. "Jewelry!"
    Nearby there were four girls in a plank collar. This is formed from two boards into which matching semicircles have been cut. The two boards are connected and supported by five flat, sliding U-irons; when the U-irons are slid back, the collar is opened. When they are slid into place, and the two leaves are bolted together, the collar is closed. Two hasps with staples, secured with padlocks, occur, too, at opposite ends of the planks. These lock the- collar. The four girls in the plank collar were kneeling, waiting for their master to conduct some business. He was of the peasants. They were nude. Their hands were tied behind their backs.
    "When, fleeing from the brigands, I advised seeking refuge in the peasant village," said one, "I did not realize they would take us."
    "Peasants are not too fond, generally, of free persons from the high cities," said one of them.
    "We were not of their village," said another.
    "Doubtless they will use the proceeds from our sale to supplement their income," said one of them.
    "If they do not drink it up in the page taverns first," said the second girl, bitterly.
    "We are free women,” said the first girl, struggling in the thongs. "They cannot do this to us!"              I
    "Think such thoughts while you may," said the fourth girl. "We are soon to be branded slaves."
    "Look at that disgusting girl," said the second girl, indicating with her head the moaning, writhing slave with the leather worker.
    "Yes," said the fourth girl.
    "Can they make me do that?" asked the second girl, frightened.
    "They can make you do anything, my dear," said the fourth girl.
    "Jewelry!" I heard. "Jewelry!"
    I stepped away to one side and stopped before a blanket spread out on the boards. On the blanket, spread out, were dozens of pins and brooches, clasps and buckles, rings and necklaces, and bracelets and earrings, and bangles and armlets, and body chains. A pleasant-looking fellow in a woolen tunic sat cross-legged behind the blanket.
    "Buy jewelry here," said he. "It is cheap and attractive. Bedeck your slaves."
    "See, Master?" asked a girl kneeling at his side, collared, nude, lifting her arms. She was almost covered with jewelry. About her throat alone there must have been twenty necklaces. She lifted the necklaces, causing them to rustle and shimmer, holding them forth to me in her small hands. Then she extended her right arm that I might see the armlets, bracelets and rings which scarcely permitted her flesh to be seen.
    "Buy some for your slave," said the man. "Here," said he, lifting a necklace from the blanket. "This was taken from a free woman, now scrubbing stones in the plaza of Iphicrates."
    "I do not have a slave," I said.
    "I will sell you this one," said he, indicating the display slave at his side, "for a silver tarsk."
    "Buy me, Master," she laughed. "I am pretty. I work hard. I can well please a man in the furs."
    "It is true," smiled the fellow.
    "Surely women can be purchased more cheaply in Victoria than a