so.
She then looked up.
“Run now to your master,” I said. “Crawl to him on your belly, and beg his touch.”
“Yes, Master,” she said. She leaped to her feet, frightened, and sped away.
I watched her disappear in the crowds.
I laughed. What a meaningless, lovely, delicious little slave she was. How helpless she was in her needs.
Another slave girl in the crowd smiled at me. I grinned at her, and turned away.
It is pleasant to live on a world where there are female slaves. I would choose to live on no other sort of world.
Before I left, the fair I would inspect the major market, that beyond the smithies and chain shops, where the most numerous exhibition platforms were erected, near the great sales pavillion of blue and yellow silk, the colors of the slavers.
If I found girls who pleased me I could arrange for their transportation to Port Kar. The shipment and delivery of slaves is cheap.
I turned down the street of the dealers in artifacts and curios. I was making my way toward the public tents in the vicinity of the amphitheater. It was there that the tables for the odds on the Kaissa matches might be found.
In traversing the street I saw the fellow from the polar basin, he stripped to the waist, with fur trousers and boots. He was dealing with a large fellow, corpulent and gross, who managed one of the booths. There was a thin scribe present as well behind the counter. The fellow in the furs, the rope coiled over his shoulder, apparently spoke little Gorean. He was taking objects from the fur sack he had carried with him. The large fellow behind the booth’s counter was examining them. The objects would not stand on the counter, for ‘they were rounded, as are shapes in nature. They were intended to be kept in a pouch and, from time to time, taken forth and examined. All details must be perfect, from every perspective, as in nature. Some collectors file such objects that they may be more easily displayed on a shelf or in a case. The native of the polar basin, on the other hand, holds them when he looks at them, and they have his attention as he does so. He is fond of them. He has made them. There were carvings of sea sleen, and fish, and whales, and birds, and other creatures, large and small, of the north.
Other objects, too, other carvings, were in the bag. The carvings were of soft bluish stone and ivory, and bone.
I continued on my way.
In a few minutes I had come to the area of the public tents, and there was there no difficulty in determining where the Kaissa lines were to be found. There were dozens of tables, and the lines were long at each.
I would stay in one of the public tents tonight. For five copper tarsks one may rent furs and a place in the tent. It is expensive, but it is, after all, En’Kara and the time of the fair. In such tents it is not unusual for peasants to lie crowded, side by side, with captains and merchants. During En’Kara, at the Fair, many of the distinctions among men and castes are forgotten.
Unfortunately meals are not served in the tents. For the price it seems one should banquet. This lack, however, is supplied by numerous public kitchens and tables. These are scattered throughout the district of the fair. Also there are vendors.
I took my place at the end of one of the long lines, that which I conjectured to be the shortest.
There are some compensations in the public tents, however. One may have paga and wines there. These are served by slave girls, whose comforts and uses are also included within the price of the lodging.
“Soup!’ Soup!” called a man.
“Soup!” I called, raising my hand. I purchased from him, for a copper tarsk, a bowl of soup, thick with shreds of hot bosk and porous chunks of boiled sul.
“Whom do you favor in the great match?” I asked.
“Scormus of Ar,” said he.
I nodded. I handed him back the soup bowl. I feared the odds would be too high on Scormus. Yet I would wager him the winner. I was not pleased, however, that I
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