SPARTAN WARLORD SYSTEM: CONQUERING EMPIRES AND BEAUTIES

Chapter 8: The Slave Market and Three Outcasts

CRASH!

The rotten wooden door splintered in two. Whitewash dust and bits of straw scattered as two towering brutes shoved their way inside. Both wore tarnished bronze cuirasses and faded crimson cloaks, carrying eight-foot spears with polished bronze tips.

Ares's floating silhouette dissolved into mist, leaving a parting sneer in Jackson's mind: [Company is here, hotshot. Go show off that miserable charm.]

Before Jackson could react, a calloused, hairy hand grabbed the collar of his coarse tunic, yanking him forward so hard his feet barely touched the dirt.

"Move, Hypomeion scum!" the soldier barked, his breath foul with garlic and cheap wine. "The Council doesn't have all day to wait for slackers like you to freeze to death!"

Jackson swallowed his combat instincts, resisting the urge to snap the man's thumb. His current frame was far too weak. If he engaged in hand-to-hand combat now, the second guard's spear would skewer him before he could execute a throw. Keeping his jaw tight and his gaze veiled behind unkempt hair, Jackson let himself be hauled out onto the gravel streets of Eurotas.

The morning sun beat down on his pale skin. Dust swirled along the dirt roads, kicked up by hooves and columns of Spartan men being herded like cattle. Jackson was shoved into the open courtyard of the Kleros Council Hall, a stone structure with heavy pillars surrounded by a sharpened wooden palisade.

Around twenty unmarried, lower-caste youths had already gathered. All were bare-chested, their ribs visible under taut skin, shivering in the cold valley wind.

On a three-foot marble platform, a potbellied official named Nikomedes stood haughtily, holding a sheepskin scroll. Four heavily armed guards flanked him.

"Listen up, you useless mongrels!" Nikomedes's voice boomed across the yard. "Our recent defeat on the northern border has cost the blood of true Spartan heroes! The citizen population has plummeted! By order of the Ephors, an emergency reproduction decree has been enacted!"

Nikomedes raised a hand. The wooden gates at the far side of the courtyard swung open.

"Every bachelor gathered here is required to take at least one woman from the war captives to wed! You will put children in them and produce new warriors for Sparta!" A cruel smirk touched Nikomedes’s face. "Nothing in this city comes without a cost. In return, you must pay a weekly grain tax of one hundred and ten pounds to the military stores for every woman you claim! Fail to pay on collection day, and your carcasses will feed the vultures at the foot of Mount Taygetos!"

Panicked whispers broke out among the young men. One hundred and ten pounds of grain a week was an impossible demand for the Hypomeion caste, who could barely secure a crust of black bread.

Yet the panic dissolved the moment roughly forty captive women were led into the yard. Bound at the wrists and necks with thick hemp ropes, they wore tattered garments that barely shielded them from the chill.

The Spartan youths immediately surged forward.

"Look at that Arcadian girl! Her hips are as wide as a grain cart!" a stocky youth shouted, elbowing through the crowd. "She can easily carry strong sons!"

"I am claiming the Macedonian! Her thighs are built like temple pillars!" another yelled, jostling for position.

Ancient Spartan standards of female beauty were utilitarian. The ideal woman was broad-shouldered, wide-hipped, and heavily muscled, built to endure hard labor and the physical toll of childbirth. Under Spartan doctrine, such women were believed to bear thick-boned warriors capable of surviving the Agoge.

The young men scrambled wildly, shoving one another to claim the stockiest women in the pen.

Meanwhile, at the far edge of the line, three women stood separated from the rest. Not a single Spartan youth spared them a glance. Men spat on the dirt as they passed, cursing them as barren omens.

Jackson's eyes narrowed. With a modern perspective, his focus settled entirely on these three outcasts.

The woman on the left stood the tallest, around five feet nine inches. Her tangled copper-red hair was cropped short at her shoulders. Her sun-kissed frame was carved with lean, defined abdominal muscles. Her waist was slender, her carriage proud despite her torn burlap clothing, and faded sword scars marked her forearms and calves. Her sharp green eyes carried the lethal hunger of a chained lioness. Freya, the gladiator.

In the center stood a woman with pale alabaster skin that contrasted starkly with the mud around her. Her features held the cold, symmetrical elegance of nobility. Her waist tapered into graceful, feminine curves beneath a soiled silk tunic. Her expression showed no terror, only sharp, dismissive calculation. This was Casandra, an exiled noble from Athens.

On the right, curled on the ground, was a young woman of about twenty with warm olive skin. Her frame was delicate, her waist exceptionally small, while her curves were remarkably full against her torn bindings. She had a soft, rounded face with lush lips, staring at the dust through a veil of tears. Shirin, a fallen Persian noblewoman reduced to the lowest Helot status.

To the Spartans, these three were defective: too slender at the waist and carrying softer, more feminine builds, which local superstition claimed would drain a child’s strength and produce weaklings.

To Jackson, they were an untapped goldmine.

[Damn, you have an eye for talent, Boss,] Ares's voice chimed in with a belly laugh. [Are Spartans blind? Pass up a fierce gladiator, a cunning noblewoman, and a gorgeous Persian girl for heavy farm hands? But are you sure about this? That is over three hundred pounds of grain a week!]

Shut up, parasite, Jackson replied internally. In war, brute force without intellect is just cannon fodder. These three possess abilities no other woman in this valley has.

Jackson stepped forward, parting the crowd of youths securing their claims. His stride was steady and deliberate as he approached the marble dais where Nikomedes was recording names.

Jackson raised his hand, pointing directly at Freya, Casandra, and Shirin.

"I will take those three at the end," Jackson said. His voice was quiet, but its flat, steady tone cut right through the noise in the yard.

The courtyard went dead silent.

The Spartan youths turned, then erupted into mocking laughter.

"Hahaha! Look who it is! Jackson the earthworm!"

"He wants to die early! Taking three barren women at once?!"

"The runt looks like a dry twig! How is he going to feed three mouths and pay the Council's tax?!"

Nikomedes paused his brush above the sheepskin parchment. His narrow eyes appraised Jackson from the platform as if looking at a lunatic jumping into a wolf pit.

"You are the weakest runt in this district, Jackson!" Nikomedes sneered. "You couldn't even lift a training shield! Taking three slender-waisted burdens means you owe three hundred and thirty pounds of grain to the military granary by next week! Fail to deliver, and I will personally see you and your three barren playthings hurled from the cliffs of Taygetos!"

Jackson did not drop his gaze. The corner of his mouth ticked upward into a cold smirk that made the surrounding laughter falter.

"Put my name on the roll, Councilman," Jackson said evenly. "Three hundred and thirty pounds of grain. Next week, it will be at your feet."

Nikomedes scoffed in disgust and slashed his brush across the parchment. "Get these castaways out of my sight!"

Jackson turned, walking toward the three women still bound by rope. Freya glared at him with lethal defiance. Casandra observed him with an amused, enigmatic smile. Shirin looked up, her lips trembling with disbelief and a flicker of desperate hope.

Jackson took the lead rope in his left hand and gave it a firm tug.

"Walk," Jackson ordered, leading the three women out of the council yard and back toward his hovel on the edge of the Eurotas valley.