I nodded. They were bringing out the first girl for auction. She was a medium girl: Medium
height, medium build, medium complexion, and medium pretty – by Cernian standards. She was
nude, of course, except for her chains, and her skin glistened with the usual coat of
slave oil. She smiled at us as she stepped onto the block. I nudged Edmond. “Bid!” I
whispered. He grinned at me, but remained stubbornly silent.
He kept silent as the rest of the coffle was brought forward and sold, one by one. Some
were taller and some shorter, some lighter and some darker, some leaner and some curvier,
some larger and some more petite. They were all beautiful. Aqua vita gave them the natural
beauty of good health, and if a girl needed a stronger elixir for skin blemishes or hair
problems, she could beg her master for it. And the master would cheerfully provide: Who
would want to own a plain slavegirl when with a little effort one could own a pretty one?
In the Four Empires, where alchemy was less advanced, slavegirls make heavier use of
ordinary cosmetics. Here in the Island Kingdoms they used very little: A girl would wear a
touch of perfume and might use a bit of lip gloss, but hardly ever anything else. The
slaves on the block, of course, only wore slave oil. But that was enough. It pleased and
excited the girls to be on the auction block, even through the soothing effects of the
slave oil. They displayed their beauty proudly, projecting to the audience. I saw Edmond
lick his lips a few times, especially when the short blonde cutie was brought out to be
bid on. But he still kept silent.
The slave dealers put eleven girls in each coffle, with the last girl customarily being
the one the dealers judged to be the most beautiful. In this chain, the eleventh girl was
a milk-chocolate-skinned dryad with exceptional breasts and a luscious mane of wavy black
hair. She wore special gilded chains, and the gold shone beautifully against her skin.
Even by Cernian standards, she was absolutely gorgeous. The audience “oohed”
appreciatively, and she smiled, white teeth flashing.
Perhaps I should explain here that the skin tones I’d seen so far in Cern ranged from
creamy white (like Belzac’s Orane and Beauregard’s red-haired Fioe) to copper-brown (like
Lieutenant Quennel and his Ninette). Light skin was more common than dark (due to
immigration from the Ularian Empire), but most, like my own Luce, fell somewhere in
between. Ebony skin, I learned later, did exist but was extremely rare. In any case,
Cernians had the same sort of mild and idiosyncratic preferences for skin color that they
had for hair or eyes: One might prefer dark beauties in the same way that another liked
redheads. I was the one who had neuroses about it.
The auctioneer started to describe how the girl on the block had been imported, at great
expense, from exotic Ixa-ongo. The girl turned her head and stuck her tongue out at him.
Everyone laughed.
“All right,” the auctioneer said, laughing along with us. “She’s really from the Lescord
Commune; Cernian born and bred. But her ancestors did come from Ixa-ongo. Now, will you
gentlemen be pleased to start the bidding?”
The bidding was vigorous. Even Edmond put in a bid, and so, to my surprise, did Albert
from the Bergmark embassy. He sat a few rows in front of us, hiding under a hat, and I
hadn’t noticed him until he made his bid. But the offers quickly rose far above Edmond and
Albert’s bids, until the girl was sold for an even 400 sceptres. It was an extraordinary
price, but then she was an extraordinary slavegirl.
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