I stepped aboard the ship in the late afternoon. Regretfully I watched the dock grow near. I would rather have spent my remaining time at this lustful city on board ship, but I was in command and it was my duty to be out at the head of whatever was happening and involving my men. The provisions had not arrived this morning as I’d hoped for. They apparently weren’t to be delivered until late afternoon, which would cause us to miss the evening tide. We would have to stay in this place of lost virtues one more day. Captain Sargas’s men were successfully keeping up the part of this being a trading venture. I had to admit that someone was going to be very wealthy after the trade goods that were filling up our ship’s hulls were sold. I made my way with Gavin and a few other men farther into the city then I had gone the previous day, which is when I got my first glimpse of the northern savages. As we came to the land side walls of the city we happened upon a slave market, one of their compassionate mercies for their northern neighbors as it were. New slaves were being herded down the street from one of the open gates to the surrounding countryside toward the slave market. One in particular caught my eye. She was the only slave mounted on a horse of all of the captives. Her hands and legs were bound to the horse she rode, but despite that she sat as tall as she could in the saddle. Her chin held high and proud, the same as the rest of the slaves, who were mostly men. She couldn’t have been more than 14 or 15 at best. She had been stripped of her clothing from the waist up and her developing female form was bare for all to see. She may have been young and yet not fully developed, but she was clearly very pretty and desirable enough to have caught the eye of any man, but not here. To a man the prospective buyers had eyes only for the men. She would be used only as a passing diversion or a carrier of a child to prolong the sick culture that she was being sold into. When did men forsake the female form that had been specially crafted for all their passionate needs and instead turned to members of their own sex for pleasure instead? I shook my head in disgust and prayed that whatever sickness that had seized hold of these men and born this perverted fruit would never occur in the homelands of my birth. The absence of the Creator and His morality of justice in a culture causes all kinds of darkness, which this was only one of. I stepped out determinedly toward the slave auction, but Gavin halted my progress by grabbing my arm. “You can’t be serious Zevin she’s only fourteen or fifteen at best! It would be like buying our younger sister!” Annoyed at him for thinking I had plans to molest a young girl I shook off his hold on me, and continued on towards the auction. He tried once more to dissuade me, “Think of what mother would think Zevin!” Now that I could respond to. I turned around and said, “I seem to remember that father bought mother at a slave auction. That didn’t turn out too badly did it?” Before he could respond I added, “Besides I have mother’s permission to do this.” Gavin’s mouth literally fell open, “How can you say that Zevin?” “She made a deal with me when I was younger. She told me that if a girl hadn’t taken an interest in me by the time I was twenty two that I had her permission to go buy a slave girl.” I had to turn away quickly to keep from laughing out loud at Gavin’s incredulous face. My humor died quickly as I entered the slave auction house. I received a lot of attention by the buyers, but I ignored them. Slave auctions tend to sell the least desirable candidates first, while there were plenty of buyers around hoping to get more money for them, which is why I didn’t have to wait long, as the girl was brought out first. I immediately lifted my hand at the auctioneers start off of the bids. My action was greeted by laughter by the rest of the