"Your father sent men to the Voltai, to seek out and destroy Marlenus of Ar!" cried Talena.
"I do not deny that my father was enemy to Marlenus of Ar," said Claudia. "That is well known, and so, too, at the time, were many in Ar!"
"Cernus!" cried Talena.
"Yes," said Claudia.
"To whom you were a slave!" said Talena, scornfully.
"She-urt!" cried Claudia.
"Turn about, slowly," said Talena.
Men gasped.
Angrily, Claudia complied. Then she again faced Talena. "I stood higher in the Central Cylinder than you," she said. "I was the daughter of a former Administrator of Ar! You were nothing, a disowned disgrace, rescued from the north. They brought you back in a sheet, with not even a tarsk bit to your name, and dishonored. No longer had you even citizenship! Because of what you once had been, the daughter of Marlenus of Ar, you were permitted to live in the Central Cylinder. But you were kept hidden there, sequestered, that you not bring further embarrassment upon Marlenus of Ar and the city! Do not compare yourself with me. You are nothing! I am the daughter of Minus Tentius Hinrabius!"
"Do not listen to her, beloved Talena!" called a man.
"You are an upstart," said Claudia. "You are a Cosian puppet!"
"I am your Ubara!" cried Talena.
"You are a Cosian puppet!" said Claudia.
"Treason!" cried men.
"You even wear Cosian garments!" cried Claudia.
"In this fashion we may demonstrate our respect for Cos, our 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, a mere 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 covert a fashion as is possible. This has to do with structure in human society, without which, whether concealed or not, 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 tyranness 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, however, 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!" cried 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 this moment? Is my name not first on your list? Relish your 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 in 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 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 has 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.
"You wished to use him to further your own political ambitions," said Talena.
"No!" said 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 to the crowd.
"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 guardsman behind her, and not gently. Then she was stood again, wavering, on her small feet.
"And, c
itizens," 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 to Ar, before the accession of your father, the infamous Minus Tentius Hinrabius, to the chair of the 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 another.
"Speak," said Talena, amused.
"Twice I have been 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, was yet a woman, that I belonged at the feet of men."
"You will not object then when I return you to your proper place," laughed Talena.
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!"
"Then rejoice as I order you embonded!" 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 on her knees!" cried Talena.
"I am a free woman!" wept Claudia. "I am not yet legally embonded!"
"Thus," cried 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 forced to her knees.
"You look well there, Hinrabian!" said Talena.
"False Ubara!" screamed Claudia, held on her knees.
Talena made an angry sign and a guardsman 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!" said 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.
"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 embonded, and before nightfall."
Claudia's body shook with sobs.
"Send her to the chain," said Talena.
Claudia was pulled 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 on 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, wonderingly.
"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 women 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. The woman looked at her, gratefully, and quickly pulled the proffered 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.
"And you are still beautiful," I said.
"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 Ta
lena," 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, 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 embonded 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. It is in such a condition, ideally, of course, that a woman appears on the block. Doubtless slave fires would by then have been routinely lit in her belly, and she would then find herself helplessly, needfully, piteously, dependent upon the caresses of men. This is done to them, as a matter of course, to make them better slaves. Too, of course, there is something in slavery itself that is arousing to the woman, that she is owned and must obey. In this sense slavery itself prepares the kindling for the blaze of passion. And sometimes the man’s touch is no more than the match applied to this waiting tinder. The needful slave, it is said, is a good slave. Once the slave fires have been lit in her belly, whether with a touch or with a lengthy and careful regimen of irresistible arousal, it is done; she can never go back. She is then, for always, in effect, a man’s slave. Sex, a weapon often used by women on Earth, is on Gor, with slaves, a weapon most often used by men. For example, many a girl in the pens is deliberately starved for sex, that to assist in readying her for her sale. Not unoften in the throes of her need she fruitlessly, for days, begs the attentions of neglectful, imperious guards, who scornfully leave her to twist and squirm, and scratch and whine, unattended to, in her kennel. She is then, after the application of such a judicious and calculated deprivation, likely to perform eagerly on the block and, if permitted speech, to beg piteously to be purchased. Needless to say, men can find these slave’s discomforts and torments amusing. Too, it is always pleasant to have a beautiful woman so much at your mercy, at your feet, humbly begging to be caressed. And, naturally, the girl’s needs, and whether they will be satisfied or not, give the masters an additional instrument of considerable power over her. Consider one who was once a proud free woman reduced to bondage and now the victim of ignited slave needs who must crawl to the feet of even a hated master, perhaps a former enemy, and, her lips to his feet, piteously sue for his attentions.
Magicians of Gor Page 19
