A View to a Sale

Last evening was a spectacle, as I anticipated it would be. Arriving late to the House of Tenalion, it was an effort to get past the man at the entrance. In the end, however, Ar is a city of favors like any other city. There are few courtesies that a man with a debauched chain of whores cannot have extended to him. I arrived late to the auction. That was both good and bad. All of the merchandise displayed on the fourth day of the Love Feast at a major auction house will be, doubtless, quality meat. While one might argue that he did not get the best price, he will not be heard bemoaning the quality of the girl. That is the good news. That bad business about arriving late, of course, is that the best seats have already been filled. Some arrive in the early part of the afternoon to claim their spot. There was something about being sixty feet and a hundred rows high that put a perspective on the show, for that is precisely what it is; as concerned with flourish and flair as any production at the playhouse of the esteemed Poet Pentilicus.

I was surprised to have the company of the Scribe, Kateb. He is an interesting fellow, not nearly as 'above-it-all' as many of his Caste tend to be. Oh, I understand it well enough. Stoicity, impartiality and an air of detachment are admirable qualities in the men of the Blue. He seems to be following a different philosophy, though I may be wrong about that. Admittedly, my chosen curriculum is deficient in that area of study. He has the look of a man that has seen enough of history and has finally deigned to have a look around him. Have you ever seen a Scribe get into a brawl with a fishmonger? I have. And he did. He did it for the experience, I think. You can read about pugilism and gain a vicarious understanding, but there is little to compare in the words of others to actually having another man ball up his fist and clock you. He seems interested, too, in other capacities of the flesh. While he has always had an eye for my slave, Elise, a girl he knew when she was better known as Jelly, he has become a favorite of a few of my whores as well, notably Portia and Six. And there he was, of course, shoulder to shoulder with me watching one of the city's largest vendings of flesh of the year.

I did not purchase a girl at the auction, for the record. The prices at that time of the evening were too rich for a Poet's wallet, even if that Poet wore the caps of whoremonger, playwright and Magistrate.