Magicians of Gor (77 page)

with you.” She then knelt on the couch, and back on her heels.

I glanced to Tolnar, the magistrate. He nodded.

“You may approach me,” she said. She extended her arms, opened to him, as she

knelt. “Come, handsome slave,” said she. “Come, couch with me!”

I threw the lever, releasing the net.

It fell over her beautifully.

She screamed in surprise and fear, as its toils dropped about her. She tried to

spring to her feet on the couch, clawing at it, but fell. Milo, doubtless

practiced in the matter, expertly brought it together and whipped it about her

and, in an instant, on her belly on the couch, she was helpless in its folds.

Almost instantly, too, Marcus entered the front room, followed by Tolnar and

Venlisius. I had remained for a moment or two at the observation portal. Then I,

too, followed by Lavinia, entered the room. Although she may have been aware of

my movement, that of another man entering the room, she did not, in her

consternation, and in her attention to Marcus and the magistrates, before her,

really look upon me, or recognize me. I was then in back of her, with the

bracelets and linked shackles. Milo, his work done, stood now to one side.

“What is the meaning of this!” she cried, on her belly, turning her head to the

right, lifting it from the furs, squirming in the toils of the net.

I, behind her, gathered the net more closely about her, (pg. 453) jerking her

legs more closely together, wrapping the net more closely about them. A naked

woman, on furs, netted, helpless, is quite lovely.

“Sleen! Sleen!” she wept. She lifted her head, as she could, from the furs,

looking at the magistrates who, in their robes, with their fillets, with their

wands of office, regarded her. “Sleen!” she screamed at them. They did not

strike her. She did not seem to realize that she had now become a slave.

“Release me!” she demanded. “Release me!”

“What was your name?” inquired Tolnar. “We shall wish it for the records.”

“I am Talena!” she cried. “I am Talena, Ubara of Ar! Down on your knees before

me! I am Talena, Talena! Ubara of Ar! I am your Ubara!”

“You may, of course, attempt to conceal your former identity,” said Tolnar. “At

this point it is immaterial.”

“I am Talena!” she cried.

“Perhaps you might think to delude a poor slave,” said Tolnar, “but we are free

men.”

“Fools!” she wept.

“What was your name?” he asked.

“My name is Talena!” she said. “I am Ubara of Ar!”

“You would have us believe that Talena of Ar is a sensuous tart in need of

sexual relief, a mere chit who would condescend to keep a rendezvous so shameful

as this?”

“I am Talena!” she cried, squirming in the net. “Release me! I shall scream!”

“That would be interesting, if you are Talena,” said Tolnar. “You would then

choose to publicize, it seems, your whereabouts. You would choose to be

discovered naked and netted, before magistrates, in a room in the Metallan

district, having been prepared to couch with a slave?”

She threw her head down, angrily, on the furs. “I am Talena,” she said. “Release

me!”

“What is more pertinent to our purposes,” said Tolnar, “is your legal status,

or, in this case, it seems, your former legal status.”

“Release me, fools,” she said.

“What was your legal status before you entered this room?” asked Tolnar.

“I was, and am, a free woman!” she said.

“Of Ar?” he asked.

“Yes!” she cried, angrily.

“That is the crux of the matter,” said Tolnar. He glanced to Venlisius, who

nodded.

(pg. 454) “Do you doubt that I am Talena?” she demanded of Tolnar.

“Surely you must permit me to be skeptical,” he smiled.

“I am she!” she cried. Then she looked wildly at Milo. “You know me!” she wept.

“You can attest to my identity! You have seen in the Central Cylinder! So, too,

had that slut of a slave!”

“Stand,” said Tolnar to Lavinia, who immediately complied.

“Please, Milo,” begged the netted beauty, helplessly, pathetically, agonizingly,

“do not lie! Tell the truth!”

He looked at her.

“Please Milo,” she begged. “Tell them who I am!” How much she felt then

dependent upon him, how much in his power! How different this was from her

former mastery of him! How terrified she was that he might, for one reason or

another, lie to the magistrates, putting her then before them as no more than a

common, captured, compromised female.

“Who was she?” asked Tolnar of Milo.

“Talena, Ubara of Ar,” said Milo.

“Ah!” she wept in relief.

Tolnar and Venlisius exchanged glances. They did not much relish this

development.

“Release me, you sleen!” wept Talena, struggling futilely in the net.

“And you?” asked Tolnar of Lavinia, who was looking on the netted captive,

indeed, a prisoner of the same cords which, months before, had held her with

such similar perfection.

“Master?” asked Lavinia.

“Who was she?” said Tolnar.

“That, too, is my understanding,” said Lavinia. “Talena, of Ar.”

“Release me!” demanded the captive.

“What difference does it make,” asked Marcus, “if, indeed, she is Talena of Ar?”

“Fool!” laughed the netted captive.

“From the legal point of view,” said Tolnar, “it makes no difference, of

course.”

“Release me!” she said. “Do you think I am a common person? Do you think you can

treat one of my importance in this fashion! I shall have Seremides have you

boiled in oil!”

“I am of the second Octavii,” said Tolnar. “My colleague is of the Toratti.”

“Then you may be scourged and beheaded, or impaled!” she wept.

“You would have us neglect our duty?” inquired Tolnar. He was Gorean, of course.

(pg. 455) “In this case,” she snapped, “you are well advised to do so.”

“That is quite possibly true,” said Tolnar.

“The principle here, I gather,” said Marcus, “is that the Ubara is above the

law.”

“The law in question is a serious one,” said Tolnar. “It was promulgated by

Marlenus, Ubar of Ubars.”

“Surely,” said Venlisius to the netted woman, “you do not put yourself on a

level with the great Marlenus.”

“It does not matter who is greater,” she said. “I am Ubara!”

“The Ubara is above the law?” inquired Marcus, who had an interest in such

things.

“In a sense, yes,” said Tolnar, “the sense in which she can change the law by

decree.”

“But she is subject to the law unless she chooses to change it?” asked Marcus.

“Precisely,” said Tolnar. “And that is the point here.”

“Whatever law it is,” cried the netted woman, “I change it! I herewith change

it!”

“How can you change it?” asked Tolnar.

“I am Ubara!” she said.

“You were Ubara,” he said.

She cried out in misery, in frustration, in the net.

“Interesting,” said Marcus.

“Release me!” demanded the woman.

“Do you think we are fond of she who was once Talena,” asked Tolnar, “of she who

betrayed Ar, and collaborated with her enemies?”

“Release me, if you value your lives!” she cried. “Seremides will wish me free!

So, too, will Myron! So, too, will Lurius of Had!”

“But we have taken an oath to uphold the laws of Ar,” said Tolnar.

“Free me!” she said.

“You would have us compromise our honor?” said Tolnar.

“I order you to do so,” she said.

Tolnar smiled.

“Why do you smile?” she asked.

“How can a slave order a free person to do anything?” he asked.

“A slave!” she cried. “How dare you!”

“You are taken into bondage,” said Tolnar, “under the couching laws of Marlenus

of Ar. Any free woman who couches with, or prepares to couch with, a male slave,

becomes herself a slave, and the property of the male slave’s master.”

“I, property!” she cried.

(pg. 456) “Yes,” said Tolnar.

“Absurd!” she said.

“Not at all,” he said. “It is, I assure you, all quite legal.”

“Proceed then with your farce!” she cried. “I know Appanius well, and his

position in this city is much dependent upon my support! Have I not freed him of

numerous burdens? Have I not adjusted his taxes? Have I not spared his house,

and those of other favorites, the exactions of the levies?”

“You acknowledge, then,” said Tolnar, “that you are a slave?”

“Yes,” she said, angrily. “I am a slave! Now, summon Appanius, immediately, that

I may be promptly freed! Then you will see to what fates I shall consign you!”

“But what if Appanius wishes you as a slave?” asked Marcus.

She laughed. “I see you do not know our dear Appanius,” she said. “The most he

would want from a woman would be to have her do his cleaning and scrub his

floors!”

“But what if that is precisely what he has in mind for you?” asked Tolnar.

She turned white.

“Doubtless she would look well, performing lowly labors in chains,” said Marcus.

“Perhaps, unknown to you,” said Tolnar, “Appanius is a patriot.”

“Never!” she said. “Bring him here!”

“What if he would keep you in his house as a slave?” asked Marcus.

“Perhaps you think you could make your former identity known,” said Tolnar.

“That might be amusing.”

“Amusing?” she asked.

“Who would believe you had been Talena, the Ubara of Ar?” asked Tolnar.

“More likely,” said Venlisius, “you would be whipped, as a mad slave.”

“While,” said Tolnar, “another woman, suitably coached, and veiled, would take

your place in the Central Cylinder. From the point of view of the public, things

would be much the same.”

“Bring Appanius here!” she cried. “I know him. I can speak with him. I can make

him see, I assure you, that is to his advantage! This is, all some preposterous

mistake. Free me! This is all some terrible misunderstanding! Bring Appanius

here! I demand it!”

“But what has Appanius to do with this?” asked Tolnar.

“I do not understand,” said the woman.

(pg. 457) Tolnar regarded her.

“He has everything to do with it,” she said. “He is Milo’s master!”

“No,” said Tolnar.

The prisoner turned her head about, not easily, in the net. “Appanius is your

master!” she said to Milo.

“No,” he said.

“Yes!” she cried. “He is your master. He is also the master of that short-haired

slut!”

“No!” said Lavinia.

“You did not call me ‘Mistress’,” Said the prisoner.

“Why should I” asked Lavinia.

“It is true that you belong to the master of Milo,” said Tolnar, “But it is

false that the master of Milo is Appanius.”

“To whom, then, do I belong?” she asked, aghast.

“Let the papers be prepared, and the measurements, and prints, taken,” said

Tolnar.

“Yes, Tolnar,” said Venlisius.

“Papers! Measurements! Prints!” she protested.

“I think you can understand,” said Tolnar, “that in a case such as this, such

documentation, guarantees and precautions are not out of order.”

“No! No!” she cried.

Tolnar and Venlisius put their wands of office to the side and went to the back

room, to obtain the necessary papers and materials.

“You!” cried the prisoner, looking at Marcus. “It is then you to whom I belong!”

He merely regarded her.

“Who are you?” she cried.

“It does not matter,” he said.

“I will buy my freedom!” she said. “I will give you a thousand pieces of gold!

Two thousand! Ten thousand! Name your price!”

“But you have nothing,” he said. “No more than a kaiila, or sleen.”

“Contact Seremides!” she said. “Contact Myron, polemarkos of Temos! They will

arrange my ransom.”

“Ransom or price?” asked Marcus.

“Price!” she said, angrily.

“But you are not, as of this moment, for sale,” he said.

“Sleen!” she wept. She struggled but I, behind her, kept her well in place.

At this point Tolnar and Venlisius reentered the room and, in a few moments,

were in the process of filling out the papers. (pg. 458) These included an

extremely complete description of the woman, exact even to details such as the

structure of her ear lobes. Tolnar then, with a graduated tape, reaching in and

about the net, and moving the woman as necessary, took a large number of

measurements, these being recorded by Venlisius. Additional measurements were

taken with other instruments, such as a caliper. With these were recorded such

data as the width and length of fingers and toes, the width of her heels, the

lovely tiny distance between her nostrils, and so on. The result of this

examination, of course, was to produce a network of date which, to a statistical

certainty, far beyond the requirements of law, would be unique to a given

female. Then, one hand at a time, pulled a bit from the net, then reinserted in

it, her fingerprints were taken. Following this, her toeprints were taken. Then,

the woman shaken, tears on the furs, was again fully within the net, on her

belly. Her fingers and toes were dark with ink, from the taking of the prints. I

had taken care, behind her, holding her, and such, to see that she had not seen

me.

“You will never get me out of the city!” she said, suddenly, to Marcus.

“Do you really think it would be difficult,” he asked her, “gagged, hooded,

perhaps in a slave sack?”

“Already the alarm may be out for me!” she said to him.

“I have not heard the alarm bars,” he said.