Tara swayed to the rhythmic beat of the krelian dancing music; she saw that the sweating, drunken guests were suddenly, breathlessly silent. Each man there wanted her...and wanted her so powerfully, so wordlessly emphatically that friendships, agreements and alliances between their noble houses would be forgotten when the bidding started. There would be killing...and then more killing to avenge the first killings, followed by killings to exercise punitive reprisals against the subsequent killers. It had always been thus. Ever since she was hardly bigger than a ring-tailed senaticus, men had wanted her, desired to possess her, to use her violently and with brutal strength, to feel her soft white flesh beneath their callous, rapacious fingers...only the imperial seal on the slave collar round her neck had stopped them - for it was death for any man (even a Klageshuilt) to take a slavegirl with that mark on her person. Yet men had still killed just to claim a right to her future use and the envious had killed all who held that right out of sheer spite...and to remind others that dead men could not enjoy slave girls at any time. Tara had lost count of the number of Klageshuilts, Bicaraps and other members of the aristocracy who had spilled their lifeblood due to the lure of her comely form.

The music stopped. The auctioneer stepped forward; the lords below his podium craned their necks and trembled with incandescent excitement. In his heart of hearts, each one of them envisaged himself either taking Tara, enjoying her like a fine wine...or else killing the man who managed to outbid, outfox or outwit his peers. Aaaah, there would be blood on the ground...no matter who triumphed in the salesroom. They lived by the code of blood...aye and died by it. It was their way.