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prices for males generally is that
    paid for a certified woman’s slave, a handsome male, silken clad, who has been
    trained to tend a woman’s compartments. Some of such bring a price comparable to
    that brought by a girl, of average loveliness. Prices, of course, tend to
    fluctuate with given markets and seasons. Of there are few such on the market at
    a given time, their prices will tend to be proportionately higher. Such men tend
    to be sold in women’s auctions, closed to free men, with the exception, of
    course, of the auctioneer and such personnel.
    “To Lydius,” I told Thurnock.
    “Out oars!” he called.
    The oars slid outboard.
    With a creak of ropes and pullies, seamen were hauling the long, sloping yard up
    the mast, its sail still secured in the brail ropes.
    I saw Sheera, standing knee deep in the water, near the beach. She had now
    thrust her sleen knife into its belt sheath. She was a strongly bodied girl. The
    sun made the chains and claws at her throat gleam.
    “Return again,” she called. “Perhaps we will have more men to sell you!”
    I lifted my hand to her, acknowledging her cry.
    She laughed, and turned about, and waded up to the sand.
    The two male slaves I had purchased lay on their sides on the deck, their feet
    and legs pulled up, their wrists together, in their chains.
    “To Lydius!” he repeated.
    “Half beat,” said I to Thurnock.
    “Oars ready!” he called. “Half beat! Stroke!”
    As one, the oars dipped cleanly into the water, and drew against gleaming
    Thassa, and the Tesephone, lightly, began to turn in the water, her prow seeking
    the south, and Lydius.
    I turned to a seaman. “Take the two male slaves below, to the first hold,” I
    said. “Keep them chained, but dress their wounds, and feed them. Let them rest.”
    “Yes, Captain,” said he.
    I looked to the shore. Already Sheera, and her girls, had disappeared from the
    beach, slipping as invisibly, as naturally, as she-panthers into the darkness of
    the forests.
    The frames to which the male slaves had been tied were now empty. They stood
    high on the beach, where they might be easily seen from the sea.
    “Bring up from the first hold the two panther girls,” said I to a seaman.
    “Remove their slave hoods, and gags. Chain them as they were before, to the
    deck.”
    “Yes, Captain,” said the seaman. “Shall I feed them?”
    “No,” I said.
    Seamen now climbed to the high yard, loosening the brail ropes, to drop the
    sail.
    It was the tarn sail.
    Gorean galleys commonly carry several sails, usually falling into three main
    types, fair-weather, “tarn” and storm. Within each type, depending on the ship,
    there may be varieties. The Tesephone carried four sails, one said of the first
    type; two of the second, and one of the third. Her sails were, first, the
    fair-weather sail, which is quite large, and is used in gentle winds; secondly,
    the tarn sail, which is the common sail most often found on the yard of a tarn
    ship, and taking its name from the ship; third, a sail of the same type as the
    tarn sail, and, in a sense, a smaller “tarn” sail, the “tharlarion” sail; this
    smaller “tarn” sail, or “tharlarion” sail, as it is commonly called, to
    distinguish it from the larger sail of the same type, is more manageable than
    the standard, larger tarn sail; it is used most often in swift, brutal, shifting
    winds, providing a useful sail between the standard tarn sail and the storm
    sail; fourthly, of course, the Tesephone carried her storm sail; if, upon
    occasion, a ship could not run before a heavy sea, it would be broken in the
    crashing of the waves. Gorean galleys, in particular the ram-ships, are built
    for speed and war. They are long, narrow, shallow-drafted, carvel-built craft.
    They are not made to lift and fall, to crash among fifty-foot waves, caught in
    the fists of the sea’s violence. In such a sea literally, in spite of their
    beams and chains, they can break in tow, snapping