Magicians of Gor (26 page)

reparation for, the crimes of Ar.

“Turn about, again, my dear, slowly,” said Talena, musingly.

Men laughed.

Once again the Hinrabian turned slowly before her Ubara, as might have an

assessed slave.

Talena then seemed to hesitate. She turned to her advisors as though troubled,

as though seeking their council. Would the (pg. 148) Hinrabian be suitable, did

they think, as a conciliatory offering, or a partial reparation payment, to the

offended Cosians? Would she be acceptable? Would she be adequate? Or would such

an offering insult them, or offend them, in its lack of worth, in its

paltriness? I smiled. I did not doubt what their opinion, that of men, would be,

in the case of the lovely Hinrabian.

Claudia stood in fury before the dais, her fists clenched.

With no other woman, of all of them, had such consultation been deemed

necessary.

Brilliant insult thusly did Talena to the Hinrabian.

Talena then turned again to face her.

“The decision had been made,” said Talena.

Claudia drew herself up proudly.

“The matter was an intricate one,” said Talena, “and required the weighing of

several subtle factors. Against you, as you might imagine, were the defects of

your face and figure.”

The Hinrabian gasped.

“In virtue of them alone I would have disqualified you. yet there was also the

matter of your treachery to Ar, which only now, with reluctance, do I make

public.”

The Hinrabian looked at her, startled.

“What treachery?” cried men.

“Conspiracy, seditious assertions, betrayal of the Home Stone, support of the

wicked regime of Gnieus Lelius, former tyrant of Ar.”

“I am innocent!” cried Claudia.

“Did you not support the regime of Gnieus Lelius?” asked Talena.

“I did not oppose him,” said Claudia. “Nor did others! He was regent.”

“In not opposing such wicked policies, you betrayed the Home Stone of Ar,” said

Talena.

“No!” wept Claudia.

“But your political ambitions are soon to be at an end,” said Talena.

“Citizens, I implore you not to listen to her,” cried Claudia.

“You even slept at his slave ring!” cried Talena.

“No!” cried Claudia.

“In the future,” said Talena, “perhaps you will grow accustomed to sleeping at

such rings.”

Claudia seemed about to faint. She was supported by the (pg. 149) guardsman

behind her, and not gently. Then she was stood again, wavering, on her small

feet.

“And, citizens,” called Talena to the crowd, “have you not heard her, even here,

on this very platform, in my very presence, utter shamelessly seditious

discourse!”

“Yes!” cried men.

“Kill her,” cried others. “Kill her!”

“But,” said Talena to the horrified Hinrabian. “I am prepared, on my own

responsibility, and in spite of your crimes, in recollection of our former

affection for one another, which I still entertain for you, and in respect of

your exalted lineage, and the contributions of your family in Ar, before the

accession of your father, the infamous Minus Tentius Hinrabius, to the chair of

Administrator, to permit you, instead, to make amends to us all, by permitting

you the honor of serving your city.”

“I am innocent!” wept Claudia.

“Kill her!” cried men.

“Prepare to hear yourself sentenced,” said Talena.

“No!” cried Claudia.

“It is with a heavy heart and tearful eyes that I utter these words,” said

Talena.

“Marlenus of Ar freed me from bondage!” cried Claudia.

“We have observed you before us,” said Talena, “carefully and closely, how you

move and such.”

“He freed me!” cried Claudia.

“That was a mistake,” said Talena.

“Perhaps!” said Claudia.

Men regarded one anotehr.

“Speak,” said Talena, amused.

“Twice I have a slave,” said Claudia. “I have had my head shaved. I have felt

the whip. I have worn the collar. I have served men.”

“Doubtless such experiences will put you in good stead,” said Talena. “Perhaps

they will even save your life.”

“In the Central Cylinder,” said Claudia. “I have been lonely, more lonely than I

ever knew a woman could be. My life was empty. I was unhappy. I was miserable. I

was unfulfilled. In those long years I remembered my time in bondage, and that

it had been, in spite of its terrors and labors, the most real, and the

happiest, of my life. I had learned something in the collar that I was afraid

even to tell myself, that I, Claudia Tentia Hinrabia, of the Hinrabians,

belonged at the feet of men.

“You will not object then when I return you to your proper place,” laughed

Talena.

(pg. 150) But there was little laughter from about her, for the men attended to

the Hinrabian.

“I confess,” wept Claudia, “now, publicly, and before men, that I am in my heart

and belly a slave!”

“The rejoice as I order you imbonded!” said Talena.

“No!” wept Claudia. “It is one thing to be captured by a man and taken to his

tent, and put to his feet and made to serve, or to be sentenced by a magistrate

in due course of law to slavery for crimes which I have actually committed, and

another to stand here publicly shamed, before my enemy, a woman, in her triumph,

to be consigned by her to helpless bondage.”

“What difference does it make?” asked a man.

“True,” wept Claudia. “What difference does it make!”

“Put the slave to her knees!” cried Talena.

“I am a free woman!” wept Claudia. “I am not yet legally imbonded!”

“Thus,” said Talena, “will you learn to kneel before free persons!”

Claudia struggled, but, in a moment, her small strength, that of a mere female,

availing her nothing, by two guardsmen, was thrown to her knees.

“You look well there, Hinrabian!” said Talena.

“False Ubara!” screamed Claudia, held to her knees.

Talena made an angry sign and a guardsmen withdrew his blade from its sheath. In

a moment Claudia’s head was held down and forward by another guardsman.

“She is to be beheaded!” said a man.

I tensed.

Talena made another sign, and the fellow who held Claudia’s hair pulled her head

up, that she might see Talena.

Talena’s eyes flashed with fury, and Claudia’s eyes, then, were filled with

terror.

“Who is your Ubara?” asked Talena.

“You are my Ubara!” cried Claudia.

“Who?” asked Talena.

“Talena,” she cried. “Talena of Ar is my Ubara!”

This response on the part of Claudia seemed to me judicious, and, indeed,

suitable. Talena of Ar was her Ubara.

“Do you confess your faults?” inquired Talena.

“Yes, my Ubara,” sobbed Claudia.

“And do you beg forgiveness of your Ubara?” asked Talena.

“Yes, yes, my Ubara,” sobbed Claudia.

“Who begs forgiveness?” asked Talena.

“I, Claudia Tentia Hinrabia, of the Hinrabians, beg forgiveness of Talena of Ar,

my lawful Ubara!” she wept.

(pg. 151) “I am prepared to be merciful,” said Talena.

The guardsman with the drawn blade resheathed it. The guardsman holding

Claudia’s hair released it, angrily, pushing her head down. The other two

guardsmen, one holding each arm, retained their merciless grip on the Hinrabian.

“Talena, Ubara of Ar,” announced a scribe, “will now pronounce judgment on the

traitress, Claudia Tentia Hinrabia.”

“Enemy of Ar, enemy of the people of Ar, enemy of the Home Stone of Ar, Claudia

Tentia Hinrabia,” said Talena, :you are to be imbonded, and before nightfall.”

Claudia’s body shook with sobs.

“Send her to the chain,” said Talena.

Claudia was pulled up to the side and rudely manacled. She, on her knees, looked

back at Talena.

“You look well in the chains of men,” said Talena.

“You, too, Talena of Ar, my Ubara,” wept the Hinrabian, “would doubtless look

well in the chains of men!”

Men gasped, in fury.

“Take her away,” said Talena.

“Beware the chains of men!” cried the Hinrabian. Then she was pulled down the

ramp and, men jeering her and striking at her, buffeting and bruising her, was

thrown to her knees before me, to be added to the chain.

“As she is poor stuff,” said Talena, loudly, “let a silver tarsk be added to the

reparations, to compensate, if it can, for her inadequacies of face and figure.”

There was much laughter.

The Hinrabian put down her head, and I took her wrist chain and, in a moment,

with the joining ring, had attached her to the coffle chain.

She looked up at me, tears in her eyes. She gasped. My eyes warned her to

silence. Doubtless she remembered me from years before. She turned back then,

and looked toward the platform. She looked at me then, again, woneringly.

“Stand, slut of Ar,” said the auxiliary guardsman opposite me. “Move to the

first position.”

“Yes, Master,” she said, obeying.

“No, my dear,” Talena was saying to another woman on the platform. “You are too

young.”

That woman was conducted to the rear of the platform. Earlier in the morning, it

might be noted, Talena had consigned woman as young, or younger than that one,

to the chain.

“No, not she,” said Talena, as the next woman was presented. “We must keep some

beauty in Ar,” she explained.

(pg. 152) The woman looked at her, gratefully, and quickly pulled the proferred

robe again about herself, and hurried from the platform.

Men expressed approval of the decision of their Ubara.

“Master,” whispered Claudia to me, standing about a yard behind me, and to my

right.

I went to stand beside her. “Yes,” I said,

She looked up at me, her cheeks stained with tears. “Am I beautiful?” she asked,

frightened.

“Yes,” I said.

“Thank you, Master,” she said.

“Years ago,” I said, “even in your time of power and cruelty, you were

beautiful.”

“Such things are behind me now,” she said.

“Yes,” I said.

She smiled.

“Thank you, Master,” she said.

“Never doubt your beauty,” I said.

“Yes, Master,” she said.

“You are still free,” I said. “You need not address me as Master.”

“Surely,” she said, “it would be well for me to accustom myself, once again, to

the utterance of such appropriate deferences.”

“True,” I said,

“Not she, either,” said Talena.

“How merciful is Talena,” marveled a man.

“Cornelia, Lady of Ar,” said the scribe.

“Do not bare me to men, I beg you,” said the woman to Talena, clutching the robe

about her.

Talena consulted a list held by a scribe near her. It was not one of the copies

of the master list, so to speak, which contained the full list of names.

“Please,” begged the woman.

Talena looked up from the list. “Strip her,” she said.

The woman cried out with anguish as the single garment was removed from her. She

put down her head. She blushed, to totally, from the roots of her hair to her

toes.

I did not think the woman would be chosen. Like many free women, she had not

taken care of her figure. Perhaps that was why she had not wished to be bared

before men. to be sure, if she were imbonded it was likely that masters would

remedy her oversights in this area, enforcing upon her exact, even merciless,

regimens of diet and exercise. They would see that she was soon brought into

prime condition, both with respect to physical health and sexual responsiveness.

(pg. 153) “It seems,” said Talena of the woman, “that two years ago, in the

great theater, you were overheard making a remark concerning your future Ubara,

one in which you expressed disapproval of her restoration to citizenship.”

The woman regarded her, aghast.

“You are chosen,” said Talena.

The woman was dragged to the side, to be knelt and manacled. In a moment or so I

had added her to the chain.

“No,” said Talena, “not that one, dismissing the next woman.

I looked after the woman who had just been added to the chain, who had now been

ordered to her feet, and moved to the first scratch mark on the tiles. In three

or four months, if not sooner, I suspected she would have become a hot,

obedient, excitingly curved slave.

“No,” said Talena, “not this one either.”

Talena was then ready to dismiss another woman but something was called to her

attention from the list held by the representative of the High Council, and that

woman, too, was consigned to the chain. I gathered that she, or perhaps some

relative of hers, had offended some member of the current council. Another

woman, similarly, later, whom Talena seemed prepared to dismiss, she

reconsidered and selected, apparently at the request or suggestion of one of the

Cosians on the dais. As he was not likely to be a party to the internal

intrigues in Ar, and such, I supposed it was merely that the woman had appealed

to him. Perhaps he regarded her as the sort whom Cosians would enjoy having

serve their banquets, moving among the tables, bearing platters of viands, or

pouring wine, or such, or perhaps merely lying on their bellies or backs beside

their small tables at such banquets, ready, too, to serve.

“No,” said Talena, apropos of the next female, “not she.”

The free, native population of Ar, though there are no certain figures on the

matter even in the best of times, and, given the flight of many from the city,