"It was nothing," he said.

I lowered my head humbly before him, my master. It had not been nothing, of course. At the height, and in the wind, and the cold, we might have half frozen, had it not been for the comfort of those blankets. I had not been unhooded, and ungagged, incidentally, until I had been inside the tavern, in a slave receiving room. My manacles had not bee removed until I had been taken downstairs to the basement, and was standing before the gate of a kennel. I had then been put to my hands and knees, and thrust into the kennel, which had then been locked behind me. I had, when the man had left, turned about in the kennel and looked out, through the bars. I could kneel in the kennel, but I could not stand upright in it. I held the bars, and looked out. It was a dim basement. To my left and right, though I could not see them well, there were additional kennels. Several girls might be kept in such places. As nearly as I could tell they were empty. There was straw in the kennel, and a part of a blanket, a pan of water, and a pail for wastes. The next morning I was fed, pellets and gruel, in a pan thrust under the kennel gate and then, later, when I had relieved myself, brought forth the first of my lessons in dance.

"Master," I whispered.

"Yes?" he said.

"May I speak?" I asked.

"Yes," he said.

"I understand that you are satisfied with the price for which you purchased me," I whispered.

"Yes," he said.

"That is seemed a fine buy to you," I said. It seemed strange to me, then, that I, the former Doreen Williamson, the timid, shy reference librarian, from Earth, should now be inquiring into matters such as my price. As a free woman I had been priceless, and thus, in a sense, without value, or worthless. As a slave, on the other hand, I did have a value, a specific value, depending on what men were willing to pay for me.

"It was," he said.

"What did you pay for me?" I asked.

"Surely you recall," he said.

"It was two and fifty," I said, "but I do not know, really, what that means." "Two silver tarsks," he said, "and fifty copper tarsks, not tarsk bits, but tarsks, whole tarsks."

I looked up at him.

"Ah," he said, "you vain little she-tarsk, you want to know if that is much money, don" t you? You want to know how much you brought, really, on the block, as a stripped slave. You want to form an estimate as to your value. You want to know what you are worth. You are curious to know what you might bring in an open market."

"Yes, Master," I whispered.

"Curiosity is not becoming in a kajira," he said.

"Forgive me, Master," I said. I quickly put down my head.

"First," he said, "you must understand that women are cheap. It has to do with the wars. Because of the many dislocations, and the famine in parts of the country, many women have had to sell themselves into slavery. Too, thousands of females from Torcadion alone, over the recent months, in virtue of one coup or another, have been put into the market. Too, mercenaries and raiders abound. Slavers grow more bold, even in larger cities. Crowding, and the influx of refugees, too, in such cities as Ar, refugees who are often beautiful and defenseless, and easily taken, have contributed to the depression of the market. "I see, Master," I said.

"But you would still be curious as to your comparative value," he speculated. "Yes, Master," I said looking up.

"Even under normal conditions," he said, "a silver tarsk would be a very high price to pay for a semitrained girl."

"Ah," I said softly, mostly to myself. I was very pleased. I, semitrained, and a barbarian, had gone for more than twice that price!

I did have value!

"Let me put it in another way," he said, "in one that may be even more meaningful to you."

"Yes, Master?" I said.

"That was the highest price paid for a female that night," he said. "More than was paid for Gloria or Clarissa?" I asked.

"Who are they?" he asked.

"The two girls who were sold before me, just before me," I said. "Earth sluts, like yourself," he said.

"Yes, Master," I said.

"Each went for a silver tarsk ten," he said. "Both were superb. I was tempted to bid on them myself."

I was stunned that I had sold for more than Gloria and Clarissa. I had regarded them both as far superior to myself.

"You are a virgin, of course," he said.

"Oh," I said.

"That is of value to me," he said, "for I am a tavern owner. After you had performed the virgin dance, I will raffle off your virginity."

"Yes, Master," I said. I did not really understand what he was saying. I did realize, of course, and had realized this shortly after the beginning of my training, that my value might depend not simply on what I was, in myself, but even on the sort of woman I was, say, that I was a barbarian, and the relative abundance or scarcity of that commodity in the markets. Similar considerations apparently pertained to such matters as hair colors and body types. If these things were so, then I supposed that it was natural that my virginity, or lack of it, might also, at least in some cases, affect my price. My master, I noted, did not seem to be personally interested in my virginity, only in what it might mean to him in terms of its possible commercial value.

"But even if it were not for that," he said, "it is probably that you would have brought more that your lovely terrestrial compatriots."

I looked at him.

"Most Gorean men," he said, "would regard you, exhibited on the block, knowing only that much about you, as superior slave meat."

I shuddered.

"I think," he said, "in that market, that night, even if you had not been a virgin, you would have brought more than your friends. I would have thought you might have brought something in the neighborhood of a tarsk eighty or a tarsk seventy."

"But there was a bid of two for me," I said, "before your bid." "That seems a high bid," he said. "Perhaps it was the bid of someone new to the markets, perhaps one who had not seen many women vended, who did not realize how beautiful any woman is when she is put through merciless slave paces." I blushed, naked before him, in his collar.

"You bid two and fifty," I whispered.

"That is because I saw in you what others, at the time, did not," he said. "I saw in you the dancer, one I can use in the tavern. I saw in you, too, the helpless pleasure slave, who could be made the prisoner of her own passions, becoming an obedient, eager, grateful, spasmodic animal in her master" s arms." I blushed crimson.

"I think, he said, "that in time you might become a five-tarsk girl, perhaps even a ten-tarsk girl."

I looked up at him, frightened.

"You want to cover your breasts with your hands, don" t you?" he asked. "You want to clench your knees tightly together."

"Yes, Master!" I begged.

"Remain kneeling exactly as you are, pleasure slave," he said.

"Yes, Master," I said.

"And so," he said, "although the price I paid for you might have seemed high it was, from my point of view, in virtue of what you are, and will become, a splendid bargain."

"Yes, Master," I whispered.

"Are you pleased," he asked, "aside from questions of the price I paid for you, or my reasons for it, to learn that you are valuable, that you might well bring a price in the neighborhood of two silver tarsks in an open market?"

I did not know, precisely, how to respond to this question. It seemed that I was, as I had hitherto suspected, of genuine interest to Gorean men, or at least so many of them. Should I find pleasure in this, or a cause for alarm? Gorean men are generally such as to know how to handle women. They know what to do with them. Yet I did not think I would really want to be in the arms of other sorts of men.

"You have been asked a question," my master reminded me.