I wished, she was at my feet, and bidding.
Is it not pleasant to have a woman so?
“Every woman is for sale,” he said, angrily.
“She is not,” I said.
“I will offer you five thousand tarns of gold,” he said, “of double weight.”
“You are mad,” I said. Such wealth, if any man might possess it, might purchase a fleet, a city. Cecily, adjudging her in the light of markets, and seasons, with which I was familiar, if put on the block, despite her intelligence, beauty, and passion, would not be likely to bring more than two silver tarsks. She was exquisite goods, but the markets were filled with such. Earth males, sometimes brought to Gor, tended to be startled and amazed at the abundance and beauty of female slaves on Gor. This plenitude of attractive, available merchandise is not, of course, unusual for a slave-holding culture, and the collar, too, is not easily come by. On the whole, it is only the loveliest who ascend the block. Even women who sell as pot girls and kettle-and-mat girls are often well worth looking at twice, and bidding on. Too, of course, the female slaves are trained, and taught their collars, and, most often, have had their slave fires ignited. This puts them much at a master’s mercy. Accordingly, their abundance and affordability, and nature, comes often as a welcome surprise to the new male immigrant, so to speak, on Gor. Sometimes he discovers a girl he knew on Earth, one perhaps hitherto far from accessible to him, who is now a Gorean slave girl, whom he then buys for his own. Indeed, sometimes, as I understand it, a young recruit for slavers, and such, may suggest that one or more girls he knew on Earth be brought to Gor, for his slave ring.
“Then six thousand!” he cried, in fury.
“Surely you are mad,” I said.
“How mad?” said he. “Consider the danger to yourself, the difficulty of the business. It is unlikely you could manage it yourself. Surely you should be satisfied with six thousand tarns.”
“Speak further,” I said.
“She is a liability to you,” he said. “Worth nothing, unexchanged. Dangerous to keep. Others will seek her out, and kill for her, for the gold.”
“I do not understand,” I said.
“I am no fool!” he cried.
I watched his hands, assuring myself he kept them on the reins. The shuttered lantern he had slung at his saddle, on the right. I gathered that he was right-handed. Most Goreans are. As nearly as I could determine he was unarmed. In this way I was flattered. Few Goreans would place themselves in proximity to a stranger, if they were unarmed. That he did so suggested forcibly to me that he was relying on a warrior’s honor, for a warrior will seldom attack an unarmed adversary. It is disapproved of in the codes. In this way he showed respect for my caste, and, simultaneously, if I observed the codes, as he apparently expected would be the case, he assured his own security.
“If this interview is to be prolonged,” I said, “I advise you to speak quickly, and clearly. Tarnsmen may be aflight even now.”
“Do you think I do not know why you are here, concealed in the northern forests?” he asked.
The rain, which had been light, stopped. The light of the yellow moon, high to my right, broke through some clouds. I could see the sheen on the wings of the tarn, the streaking on its beak.
Tarns, as other birds, do not much care to flight in the rain. Whereas the feathering tends to shed water, it is only a matter of time before the penetrant fluid soaks through the layerings and impedes the flight. For maximum efficiency the feathers must be dry and the sky clear and dry. In the wingbeat in the rain, after a sudden clearing, the rain water is flashed into the sky, sometimes taking the light in an instant’s rainbow, vanishing almost instantly to be replaced with another, and another. More than one battle was lost when an infantry took advantage of heavy rainfall to attack a foe, a foe temporarily deprived of the support of its tarn cavalry.
“Tell me,” I said.
“How did you manage it?” he asked. “Many are curious. The darkness in the midst of day. We held her, to make use of her, to use her as a counter, if necessary, in bargaining for our lives, our tarns ready, the crowds crying out below, the rebels climbing upward, on the height of the Central Cylinder.”
“The Central Cylinder!” I said.
“Certainly,” he said, angrily.
“Then she was gone, her ropes and all, from our very side, and the cloud swept away, and there was then a light, moving away, a blinding light, like a second Tor-tu-Gor, a light on which we could not gaze. No longer had we anything with which to bargain. We took flight. Many died. The tarns of the avengers were disconcerted and confused by the light. Some of us, thus, in the confusion, made it over the walls, northward.”
“I know you!” I cried. “From the Plaza of Tarns, from Ar! From the occupation!”
“You cannot,” he said. “I am a humble tarnsman, Anbar, of Ar.”
“You are Seremides,” I said, “master of the Taurentians, the palace guard, conspirator, high traitor, with Talena, and others, to the Home Stone of Ar.”
“I am pursued,” he said. “I would again stand high in Ar, or elsewhere. There is an amnesty for any who bring forth for punishment the false Ubara, Talena, once daughter of Marlenus of Ar, now again Ubar.”
“The usurpation then is done,” I said. “I have heard this, from others.”
“There is a considerable reward for the return of Talena to Ar,” he said.
“Ten thousand tarns of gold, of double weight,” I said. “That is considerably more than six thousand.”
“You cannot bring her to Ar,” he said. “Hundreds would intercept you, and kill you, and take her from you, for the gold.”
“But you would not?” I said.
“No,” he said, “my oath upon it!”
“The oath,” I said, “of one who betrayed his Home Stone.”
“I am willing to give you six thousand tarns of gold,” he said, “in good faith, and I believe I can bring her, with a hundred men, to some point of negotiation. You cannot.”
“There is a cavalry here,” I said.
“It is not yours,” he said.
“I do not have the false Ubara,” I said.
“You must!” he cried.
“I do not,” I said.
“You speak falsely!” he cried.
“Do you truly think I can create darkness in the midst of day, that I can seize a woman and fly off with her, in a blazing light?”
This sort of thing, of course, spoke to me of no ordinary matters, even of deception and smoke, such as might have been contrived by mountebanks skilled in illusions. It spoke to me rather of Priest-Kings, or Kurii. The smoke would conceal the abduction, simply enough, and the blazing light would be a shielding, concealing, bewildering, dazzling illumination emitted from a departing vessel. Neither Priest-Kings nor Kurii cared much to advertise their devices. Large metal objects provoke curiosity and inquiry. Mystery and terror do not. They tend to close off curiosity and inquiry. Such concealments and stratagems have familiar social uses.
“You are in league with those who can,” he said. “I have the Second Knowledge. It is not unknown to me that not all ships cleave seas, the fluid roads, but that some, like tarns, sail over mountains, are fleet amongst the clouds, spread their sails not upon the liquid fields, but in the sky, that they dare to venture upon the wind roads themselves.”
“I know nothing of the abduction,” I said.
“You must,” he said. “She is your slave.”
I was silent.
“The matter became public knowledge shortly after the rising of the people, the return of Marlenus,” he said. “Two magistrates furnished the details, Tolnar, of the second Octavii, and Venlisius, by adoption, a scion of the Toratti. The former Ubara had been embonded in accord with the couching law 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. She was preparing to couch with Milo, a slave, and actor, when apprehended, and, it seems, you were at that time, by some stratagem or subterfuge, the master of the slave, Milo, and so became the master of the former free woman, Talena of Ar. The whole thing was very cleverly done, it seems. Considering the nature of
