Slave Girl of Gor by John Norman Page A

exchange, between such cities as Ko-ro-ba and Ar, and the giant of the southern hemisphere, Turia. In the fall of the city of Turia, some years ago, thousands of its citizens had fled, many of them merchants or of merchant families; with the preservation of the city, and the restoration of the Ubarate of Phanias Turmus, many of these families returned; new contacts had been made, new products discovered; even of those Turians who did not return to their native city, many of them, remaining in their new homes, became agents for the distribution of Turian goods, and for the leathers and goods of the Wagon Peoples, channeled through Tuna. That in the north the lovely dina was spoken of as the "slave flower" did not escape the notice of the expatriated Turians; in time, in spite of the fact that "Dina" is a lovely name, and the dina a delicate, beautiful flower, it would no longer be used in the southern hemisphere, no more than in the northern, as a name for free women; those free women who bore the name commonly had it changed by law, removed from the lists of their cities and replaced by something less degrading and more suitable. Dina, in the north, for many years, had been used almost entirely as a slave name. The reason, in the north, that the dina is called the slave flower has been lost in antiquity. One story is that an ancient Ubar of Ar, capturing the daughter of a fleeing, defeated enemy in a field of dinas there enslaved her, stripping her by the sword, ravishing her and putting chains upon her. As he chained her collar to his stirrup, he is said to have looked about the field, and then named her "Dina." But perhaps the dina is spoken of as the slave flower merely because, in the north, it is, though delicate and beautiful, a reasonably common, unimportant flower; it is also easily plucked, being defenseless, and can be easily crushed, overwhelmed and, if one wishes, discarded.
    The brand Eta wore was not the "dina"; it was, as I would later learn, the initial letter in cursive script of the Gorean expression 'Kajira'; it, too, however, was, in its delicacy and floral nature, an incredibly beautiful and feminine brand; I recalled that I had thought that the brand I had heated might be too feminine to mark a man's properties, such as a saddle or shield, but that it would be perfect to mark something feminine in nature; now I realized that it marked me; both the brand that I wore and that which Eta wore were incredibly feminine; our femininity, whether we wished it or not, had been deeply, and incontrovertibly, stamped upon us. It was natural, given the fact that the dina is the "slave flower," that eventually enterprising slavers, warriors and merchants, those with an interest in the buying and selling of women, should develop a brand based on the flower. Beyond this, there exists on Gor a variety of brands for women, though the Kajira brand, which Eta wore, is by far the most common. Some merchants invent brands, as the dina was invented, in order to freshen the nature of their merchandise and stimulate sales. Collectors, for example, those who are rich, sometimes collect exotic brands, much as collectors on Earth might collect stamps or coins, populating their pleasure gardens not only with girls who are beautiful but diversely marked. A girl, of course, wants to be bought by a strong master who wants her for herself, muchly desiring and lusting for her, not for her brand. When a girl is bought, of course, it is commonly because the man wants her, she, the female, and is willing to put down his hard-earned money for her and her alone, for she is alone; all she brings from the block is herself; she is a slave; she cannot bring wealth, power, or family connections; she comes naked and sold; it is she alone he buys. There are, of course, men who buy for brands. To meet this market various brands are developed and utilized. The "slave flower" brand was a natural development. Unfortunately for these entrepreneurs, their