Norman, John - Gor 25 - Magicians of Gor.txt

by Magicians of Gor [lit]

  “Treason!” cried men.

  “You even wear Cosian garments!” cried Claudia.

  “In this fashion we may demonstrate our respect for Cos, out gratitude to her,

  our friendship with her,” said Talena.

  “Dance on their strings, puppet!” screamed Claudia.

  “Perhaps it is you will dance,” cried Talena, “and as a slave, before my

  officers!”

  “And I would do so more excitingly than you!” said Claudia.

  I rather doubted that. To be sure, Talena was not trained. I supposed that both

  might look quite well, in a jewel or two, writhing as slaves before strong men.

  “Slave! Slave!” cried Talena.

  “Marlenus of Ar freed me of bondage!” said Claudia.

  “I am not Marlenus of Ar!” cried Talena.

  “He treated me with honor,” she said, “and gave me support and residence!”

  “I am not he,” said Talena.

  “Nor are you, disowned and disgraced, any longer his daughter!” cried Claudia.

  “Treason!” cried men.

  Talena turned to the crowd. “Should this woman’s caste, and her lofty birth, and

  that she was the daughter of an administrator, permit her to shirk her duties to

  the state?”

  “No!” cried men. “No!”

  “To the state of Cos?” inquired Claudia.

  “Treason!” cried men.

  “Do you think you should be shown special privileges?” asked Talena.

  This took Claudia aback.

  “Hah!” cried a fellow. “Look, she is silent!”

  Claudia, of course, was of high caste, and a member of the aristocracy. Gorean

  society tends to value tradition and is carefully structured. Accordingly, it

  would never have occurred to her that she was not, in fact, in virtue of her

  position, entitled to customary privileges. Such privileges, of course, in

  theory at least, are balanced by duties and demands far beyond those devolving

  on others. The Cosians, as many conquerors, made a point of enlisting class

  jealousies in their cause, utilizing them to secure their ends, for example, the

  replacement of a given aristocracy, or elite, with one of their own, preferably

  in as (pg. 147) covert a fashion as is possible. This had to do with structure

  in human society, without which such society is not possible.

  “Do you think you are better than other women of Ar?” asked Talena.

  “I am better than at least one,” said Claudia. “Talena, who would be tyraness of

  Ar, save only that her Cosian masters will not permit her such power!”

  “Treason!” cried men. “Kill the Hinrabian! Death to her! Let her be impaled!

  Weight her ankles!”

  “And at night, do you serve your masters in the furs?” inquired Claudia.

  It seemed that Talena might swoon at the very thought of this. She was supported

  by two of her aides.

  “Death to the Hinrabian!” cried men.

  A guardsman behind Claudia had his sword half drawn from its sheath.

  “No! No!” cried Talena to the crowd. “Do not cry out so, against a woman of Ar!”

  “Merciful Talena!” wept a man.

  The guardsman sheathed his sword.

  The crowd was then silent.

  “I regret that I cannot,” said Talena, “despite my love for you, exempt you from

  your duties to the state.”

  “Hail Talena!” wept a man.

  “Nor in this matter treat you differently from other women of Ar.”

  “Glory to Talena!” cried a man.

  “For I, too, have my duties to perform, for I am Ubara,”

  Here the Plaza of Tarns rang with the cheering of men.

  “Be done with your farce!” cried Claudia. “Here I am before you, naked and in

  your power! Have you not waited for his moment? Is my name not first on your

  list? Relish the triumph! Do with me as you will!”

  “My decision will be made,” said Talena, “as it would be in the case of any

  other woman of Ar. You will be treated with absolute fairness.”

  Talena then seemed to ponder the matter of Claudia, assessing her fittingness to

  be included among items to be accorded to Cos, in atonement for, and it

  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
<
br />   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,