I stayed four days in the rooms above the shop of
Dina of
Turia. There I dyed my hair black and exchanged the
robes
of the merchant for the yellow and brown tunic of
the
Bakers, to which caste her father and two brothers
had
belonged.
Nomads
The Caste of Bakers is not regarded
as a high caste,
Nomads
Downstairs the wooden screens that had separated the
shop from the street had been splintered apart; the
counter
had been broken and the ovens ruined, their oval
domes
shattered, their iron doors twisted from their
hinges; even the
top stones on tile two grain mills had been thrown
to the
floor and broken.
Nomads
Employed in a House or Holding
Often employed in wealthy "Houses"
Reside in the mens quarters of the House with other retainers employed
The House of Cernus, which is a broad, many-storied cylinder, has a
number of facilities which any large slave house must have. The only
difference between these facilities in the House of Cernus and such facilities
in other houses would probably have been in size, numbers of staff and
lavishment of appointment. I have already mentioned the baths in the House of
Cernus, which can rival some of the pools in the gigantic Capacian Baths, the
finest of known Gor. Less impressive perhaps but even more essential to the
operation of the House were its kitchens, its laundries, commissaries and
storerooms; its medical facilities, in which dental care is also provided;
its corridors of rooms for staff members, all of whom live in the House; its
library, its records and files; its cubicles for Smiths, Bakers, Cosmeticians,
Bleachers, Dyers, Weavers and Leather Workers;
Assassin
Training and Apprentices
...Though one is commonly born into a caste one is often not permitted to
practice the caste craft until a suitable apprenticeship has been served.
This guarantees the quality of the caste product.
Fighting Slave
Tools of the trade
Ovens with oval domes & iron doors
Grain Mills
Downstairs the wooden screens that had separated the
shop from the street had been splintered apart; the
counter
had been broken and the ovens ruined, their oval
domes
shattered, their iron doors twisted from their
hinges; even the
top stones on tile two grain mills had been thrown
to the
floor and broken.
Nomads
What the job entailed
Baking in the shop
Selling goods from shop
Selling goods on streets
Baking as a retainer in a larger "House"
Delivering goods via the caravan of carts / wagons
I then bought her a pastry from a vendor. “Eat it,” I told her, “slowly,
very slowly. Make it last a long time.”
Players
Ho-Sorl, after several races, gave Phyllis a coin, ordering her to find a
vendor and buy him some Sa-Tarna bread smeared with honey. A sly look came
over her face and in an instant saying "Yes, Master," she was gone.
I looked at Ho-Sorl. "She will try to escape," I said.
The black-haired scarred fellow looked at me, and smiled. "Of course" he said.
"If she escapes," I said, "Cernus will doubtless have you impaled."
"Doubtless," said Ho-Sod. "But she will not escape." Pretending not to be
particularly observant, but watching very closely, Ho-Sorl and I observed
Phyllis picking her way past two vendors with bread and honey.
Assassin - Selling bread at tarn races in Ar
In Gorean cities it is often the case that many
streets, particularly side streets, little more than
alleys, are too narrow for wagons. Local
deliveries in such areas are usually made by porters
or carts. Similarly, because of considerations such as
congestion and noise, and perhaps aesthetics, which
Goreans take seriously, wagons are not permitted on
certain streets, and on many streets only during
certain hours, usually at night or in the early
morning. Indeed, most deliveries, as of produce from
the country, not borne on the backs of animals of
peasants, are made at night or in the early morning.
This is also often the case with goods leaving the
city, such as shipments of pottery and linens.
This morning, some Ahn before dawn, a convoy of wagons
had rattled past our lodgings in the Metallan
district, in the insula of Torbon on Demetrios Street.
...Below, guided here and there
by lads, with lanterns, were the wagons. There had
been a great many of them. Demetrios Street, like most
Gorean streets, like no sidewalks or curbs but sloped
gently from both sides to a central gutter. The lads
with the lanterns, their light casting dim yellow
pools here and there on the walls and paving stones,
performed an important function. Without some such
illumination it is only too easy to miss a turn or
gouge a wall with an axle. Marcus had joined me after
a time. The wagons were covered with canvas, roped
down. It was not the first such convoy which we had
seen in the past weeks.
Beyond this, although many of the wagons were
unmarked, many others, in the advertising on their
sides, bore clear evidence of their origins, the
establishments of chandlers, carders, fullers,
coopers, weavers, millers, bakers, and so on, wagons
presumably commandeered for their present tasks.
Instead of having one driver, or a driver and a
fellow, a relief driver or one to help with the
unloading, and perhaps a lad to help through the city
in the darkness, each wagon had at least four or five
full-grown men with it, armed, usually two or three on
the wagon box, and another two or three on the cargo
itself, on the canvas, or, in some cases, holding to
the wagon, riding on sideboards or the step below the
wagon gate. Others, too, here and there, were afoot,
at the sides.
Magicians
What bakers are known to have baked
Round flat loaves of yellow bread
Pastries
Black bread
I thought of the yellow Gorean bread, baked in the
shape of round, flat loaves, fresh and hot; my mouth
watered for a tabuk steak or, perhaps, if I were
lucky, a slice of roast tarsk, the formidable
six-tusked wild boar of Gor's temperate forests. I
smiled to myself, felt the sack of coins in my tunic,
bent down and pushed the door open.
Outlaw
“Hurtha,” said I, “what have you there?”
“Fruits, dried and fresh, candies, nuts, four sorts of
meats, choice, all of them, fresh-baked bread,
selected pastries,” responded he, his arms full, “and
some superb paga and delicate ka-la-na.”
Mercenaries
I looked down into the eyes of the slave girl. She looked up at me,
and slowly and sensuously, with exquisite care, licked at the sugary,
white glazing on the pastry.
Players
The great merchant galleys of Port Kar, and Cos, and Tyros, and other
maritime powers, utilized thousands of such miserable wretches, fed on
brews of peas and black bread, chained in the rowing holds, under the whips
of slave masters, their lives measured by feedings and beatings and the labor
of the oar.
Hunters
We stopped by the churning shed, where Olga, sweating, had finished making
a keg of butter.
Marauders
Soon, I smelled the frying of vulo eggs in a large, flat pan…
Slave Girl
There were several yards of sausages hung on hooks; numerous canisters of
flour, sugars, and salts; many smaller containers of spices and condiments.
Assassin
Most salt at Klima is white, but certain of the mines deliver red salt,
red from the ferrous oxide in its composition, which is called the Red Salt
of Kasra, after its port of embarkation, at the juncture of the Upper and
Lower Fayeen.
Tribesmen
Lola now returned to the small table and, kneeling head down, served us our
desert, slices of topsit, sprinkled with four Gorean sugars.
Rogue
When the meat was ready, Kamchak ate his fill, and drank down, too, a
flagon of bosk milk.
Nomads
I brushed away two sellers of apricots and spices.
Tribesmen
With the tip of my tongue I touched her lips. Some slave cosmetics are
flavored. "Does Master enjoy my taste?" she asked. "The lipstick is flavored,"
I said. "I know," she said. "It reminds me of the cherries of Tyros," I said.
Beasts
The principal export of the oases are dates and pressed-date bricks. Some
of the date palms grow to more than a hundred feet high. It takes ten years
before they begin to bear fruit. They will then yield fruit for more than a
century. A given tree, annually, yields between one and five Gorean weights of
fruit. A weight is some ten stone, or some forty Earth pounds.
Tribesmen
I took a slice of hard larma from the tray. This is a firm, single-seeded
applelike fruit. It is quite unlike the segmented, juicy larma. It is sometimes
called, perhaps more aptly, the pit fruit, because of its large single stone.
Players
"Do you smell it?" asked Ulafi. "Yes," I said. "It is cinnamon and cloves,
is it not?" "Yes," said Ulafi, "and other spices, as well."
Explorers
In the cafes I had feasted well. I had had verr meat, cut in chunks and
threaded on a metal rod, with slices of peppers and larma, and roasted; vulo
stew with raisins, nuts, onions and honey; a kort with melted cheese and
nutmeg;hot Bazi tea, sugared, and, later, Turian wine.
Tribesmen
I had had verr meat, cut in chunks and threaded on a metal rod, with slices
of peppers and larma, and roasted; vulo stew with raisins, nuts, onions and
honey; a kort with melted cheese and nutmeg;hot Bazi tea, sugared, and, later,
Turian wine.
Tribesmen
I was jostled to one side by two men in djellabas. My ankle stung. I had
nearly stepped into a basket of plums.
Tribesmen
A guard was with us, and we were charged with filling our leather buckets
with ram-berries, a small reddish fruit with edible seeds, not unlike plums
save for the many small seeds.
Captive
"This is warmed choclate," I said, pleased. It was very rich and creamy.
"yes Mistress," said the girl.
"It is very good," I said.
"Thank you, Mistress," she said.
"is it from Earth?" I asked.
"Not directly," shae said. "Many things here, of course, ultimately have an
Earth orgin. It is not imporbable that the beans from which the first cacao
trees on this world were grown were brought from Earth."
"Do the trees grow near here?" I asked.
"No, Mistress," she said. "We obtain the beans, from which the chocolate is
made, from Cosian merchants, who, in turn optain them in the tropics."
Kajira
The Caste of Bakers
