Magicians of Gor (24 page)

“Do not blubber, female,” said a man. “Rejoice, rather, that you have been found

suitable, that you have been honored by having been chosen!”

the woman, then, conducted by another fellow, with an armband, signifying the

auxiliary guardsmen, the first fellow, a uniformed guardsman, returning to the

group on the platform, was conducted down the ramp. She was knelt before me.

“Wrists,” I said. She lifted her chained wrists. I then, by means of the chain,

pulled her wrists toward me. I inserted the bolt of a small, sturdy, padlocklike

joining ring through a link in the coffle chain. This would hold it in a

specific place on the chain, preventing slippage. I then snapped the ring shut

about her wrist chain. She looked up at me, coffled.

“On your feet, move,” said another auxiliary guardsman.

She rose to her feet and moved ahead, to the first line scratched in the tiles

of the plaza. There were some one hundred such lines, each about four or five

feet apart, marking places for women to stand. As she moved ahead, so, too, did

others. Beyond these hundred spaces the chain moved to the side, and was

doubled, and folded back upon itself, again and again, in this fashion keeping

its prisoners massed., different lines facing different directions, and all in

the vicinity of the platform.

“It angers me,” said a fellow nearby, “that these women should complain. It is

as simple enough duty to perform, and a worthy enough act, as female citizens,

given the guilt of Ar, her complicity in the wicked schemes of Gnieus Lelius, to

offer themselves for reparation considerations.

“Few enough are chosen anyway,” said a fellow.

“Yes,” said another, angrily.

“Are all burdens to be borne only by men?” asked a man.

(pg. 137) “What of the work levies and such?” said another.

“Yes,” said another.

“And the taxed and special assessments,” said another.

“True,” said a fellow.

“They are citizens of Ar,” said another. “It is only right that they, too, pay

the price for our misdeeds.”

“And theirs,” said another.

“Yes,” said a fellow.

“They supported members of councils, and members to elect members of councils,”

said a man.

“Yes!” said another.

“Look at noble Talena,” said a man. “How bravely she performs this duty.”

“How onerous it must be for her,” said a man.

“Poor Talena,” said a fellow.

“She, too, it might be recalled,” said a man, “appeared in public barefoot, in

the garb of a penitent, prepare to offer herself to save Ar.”

“Of course,” said a man.

“Noble woman,” breathed a man.

Auxiliary guardsmen do not wear helmets. I had, accordingly, covered my head

and, loosely, the lower portion of my face with a scarf, rather in the manner of

the fellows in the Tahari. This fitted in well with the motley garbs of

auxiliary guardsmen who, on the whole, had little in common except that they

were not of Ar. Regular guardsmen of Ar were, as I have suggested, fellows of Ar

under Cosian command, or, often, Cosians, in the uniform of Ar. Too, as

mentioned, there were regulars of Cos in the city, and, at any given time,

various mercenaries, usually on passes. Some mercenaries, it might be mentioned,

had been transferred into the auxiliary guardsmen. Some others, discharged, had

enlisted in these units. A good deal of the sensitive work in Ar, work which

might possibly produce resentment, or even enflame resistance, was accorded to

auxiliary guardsmen. Their actions, if necessary, could always be deplored or

disavowed. If necessary, some units might even be disbanded, as a token of

conciliation. Such units are, after all, difficult to control. In this I saw

further evidence of attention on the part of Myron, or his advisors, to the

principles and practices of Dietrich of Tarnburg. A similar device,

incidentally, though not one employed by Dietrich of Tarnburg, at least to my

knowledge, is to recruit such forces from the dregs of a city itself, utilizing

their resentment of, and their hatred for, their more successful fellow citizens

to constitute a vain, suspicious and merciless force. This force then may later

be (pg. 138) disbanded, or even destroyed, to the delight of the other citizens,

who then will see their conqueror as their protector, not even understanding his

use of, and sacrifice of, such instrumentalities as the duped dregs of their own

community, first making use of them, then disposing of them.

“No,” said Talena, “not her.”

A guardsman, on the surface of the platform, before the dais, draped the robe of

the penitent about the shoulders of the woman before Talena. He did this

deferentially. She was shuddering. Another guardsman quickly ushered her to the

rear and down the large ramp at the rear of the platform. She would now return

home.

“No, Talena!” called a fellow from the crowd, a few feet away.

Talena regally turned her head in his direction.

“Be silent!” said a man to he who had called out.

“Hail, Talena!” called a man from the vicinity of the fellow who had called out

before.

“Glory to Talena!” called another.

“Glory to Talena!” cried others.

She then returned her attention to her duties on the platform.

“How merciful is Talena,” said a fellow.

“Yes,” said another.

At a gesture from one of the guardsmen on the platform, another woman in a white

robe came forward, leaving the long line behind her, one extending across the

platform to the small ramp on the other side, down the ramp, across the far side

of the Plaza of Tarns, and thence down Gate Street, where I could not see its

end.

“Lady Tuta Thassolonia,” read a scribe.

Lady Tuta then, unaided, removed her robe and stood before her Ubara. Then she

knelt before her.

Men gasped.

She knelt back on her heels, her knees spread, her back straight, her head up,

the palms of her hands on her thighs.

“It seems you are a slave,” said Talena.

“I have always been a slave, Mistress,” said Lady Tuta.

Talena turned to one of her counselors, and they conferred.

“Are you a legal slave, my child?” asked one of the counselors, a scribe of the

law.

“No, Master,” said the woman.

“You are then a legally free female?” asked the scribe.

“Yes, Master,” she said.

“It is then sufficient,” said the scribe to Talena.

“You are chosen,” said Talena, graciously.

(pg. 139) “Thank you, Mistress!” said the woman.

Cheers commended the decision of the Ubara.

Another of Talena’s aides, or counselors, one in the garb of Cos, then spoke to

Talena, shielding his mouth with his hand.

Talena nodded, and he then addressed himself to the kneeling woman.

“Rise up,” said he, in a kindly fashion, “and do not address us as Master and

Mistress.”

She rose up.

“Do you wish, as a free female, before you join your sisters to our right, to

say anything?”

“Hail, Talena!” she cried. “Glory to Talena!”

This cry was taken up by hundreds about. Then she was conducted to the side, to

be manacled.

“It will be a lucky fellow who will get her,” said a man.

“She is already a slave,” said another.

“She will train speedily and well,” said another.

“I would like to get my hands on her,” said a fellow.

“She will go to some Cosian,” said another.

The woman was then drawn to her feet by an auxiliary guardsmen and conducted

down the ramp.

The auxiliary guardsman on the other side of the ramp, then, who was working

with me, said to her, “Kneel, slut.”

She knelt.

“You were rich, were you not?” he asked her.

“Yes,” she said.

“Yes—what?” he said, angrily.

“Yes, I was rich!” she said, frightened.

“Do not strike her,” I said to the fellow. “She is not yet a slave.”

“She is a slut of Ar,” he said.

“Yes,” I said.

He lowered his hand.

“Wrists,” I said to her.

She lifted her chained wrists, and I attached her to the coffle with a joining

ring.

“Why is he angry with me?” she asked.

“It might be wise to accustom yourself, even though you are legally free now,” I

said, “to addressing free men as “Master” and free women as “Mistress.”

“He is only an auxiliary guardsman,” she said.

“He is a man,” I said, “and you are female.”

“Yes!” she said.

“You see the fittingness of it?” I asked.

“Yes,” she said.

(pg. 140) “You used such expressions on the platform,” I said.

“But to my Ubara,” she said, “and to men of high station.”

“Accord such titles of respect to all free persons, even the lowliest of free

persons,” I said, “for you will be more beneath them than the dirt beneath their

sandals.”

“Forgive me, Master,” she said to the other fellow. “Forgive me, Master!”

He regarded her, his arms folded, somewhat mollified.

“It seems the slut of Ar learns rapidly,” I said.

“Get up,” he said to her. “move!”

“Yes, Master,” she said. Then she looked back. “Thank you, Master,” she said.

The line moved to its next position.

I them put the next woman on the chain, and she, too, was ordered to her feet,

and moved to the next position.

“Nor she,” said Talena of another, who had been announced. “Nor she,” said she

of another.

As I have mentioned, there were scribes on, or near, the dais with Talena. Lists

were being kept, and referred to. One list, for example, had the names of the

women upon it, in the order in which they ascended the platform. It was from

this list that one of the scribes announced the names. Another list, presumably

a duplicate list, was kept as a record of the results of Talena’s decisions. The

most interesting lists, however, seemed to be lists referred to as the various

names were called. There were at least five such lists. Three of them, I think,

are worth mentioning. One of these was held by a member of the High Council.

Another was held by a Cosian counselor. Another was held by one of Talena’s

aides, at her side.

There was suddenly a scuffle near the far ramp and a guardsman seized a woman

who had suddenly turned about and attempted to run.

“Bring her forward,” said Talena.

The guardsman, who now had her well in hand, holding her from behind, by the

upper arms, literally lifting her off the surface of the platform, carried her

forward, before Talena. The woman’s small bared feet were five inches off the

wood. She was held as helplessly as a doll. The guardsmen then put her down.

“Strip her,” said Talena.

This was done, and the woman was flung to her knees before the Ubara of Ar.

(pg. 141) “Mercy, my Ubara!” cried the woman, lifting her hands, clasped, to

Talena.

“What is your name, child?” asked Talena.

“Fulvia!” she wept. “Fulvia, Lady of Ar!”

“We are all ladies of Ar,” said Talena.

“Mercy, Ubara!” she wept, lifting her clasped hands. “Spare us! Spare your

sisters of Ar!”

“Alas, my child,” cried Talena, “we are all guilty. All of us are implicated in

the iniquities of the infamous Gnieus Lelius. Why had we not adequately opposed

him? Why did we follow his heinous policies?”

“You opposed him, beloved Ubara!” cried a man. “You tried to warn us! You did

what you could! We would not listen to you! It is we, the others, who are

guilty, not you!”

This sort of cry was taken up elsewhere in the crowd, as well. There were

numerous protests concerning Talena’s apparent willingness to accept, and share,

the guilt of Ar.

“No,” cried Talena. “I should have acted. Rather than witness the shame of Ar. I

should have plunged a dagger into my own breast!”

“No! No!” cried men.

“It would have been a tiny, if futile, symbolic gesture,” she cried, “but I did

not do it. Thus I, too, an guilty!”

Roars of protest greeted this remark on the part of the Ubara. I saw several men

weeping.

“You chose to live, to work for the salvation of Ar!” cried a man.

“We own everything to you, beloved Ubara!” cried another.

“And now,” said Talena, “in spite of all, and the most outrageous provocation,

our brother, Lurius of jad, Ubar of Cos, has spared our city. The Home Stone is

safe! The Central Cylinder stands! How shall we make amends to our Cosian

brother? What gift would be great enough to thank him for our Home Stone, our

lives and honor? What sacrifice would be too much to express our gratitude?”

“No gift would be too great!” cried men.

“No sacrifice would be too great!” cried others.

“And now, my child,” said Talena to Lady Fulvia, “do you begin to understand why

you have been requested to come here this day?”

Lady Fulvia, it seemed, could not speak. She looked up, frightened, at her

Ubara.

“Surely you regret the crimes of Ar,” said Talena. “Else why would you have come

here, as a penitent?”

Lady Fulvia put her head down.

(pg. 142) The women, of course, had been ordered to report. Indeed, they had

been ordered to report yesterday afternoon to the great theater, from whence, to

their surprse, they had been transported in cage wagons, actually locked, to the

Stadium of Blades more than a pasang away. Beneath the stands of the Stadium of