I supposed that was true.
'It is strange,' said Marcus. 'I would have thought they might even free and arm male slaves.'
I shrugged.
'But then,' he said, 'I suppose there are not too many male slaves in the city who might serve in that capacity.'
'Perhaps not,' I said. It was not like the city contained large numbers of dangerous, powerful, virile male slaves, such as might be found on the galleys, in the quarries, on the great farms, and so on. Such, in numbers, would be dangerous in the city. Most male slaves in the city were pampered silk slaves, owned by Gorean women who had not yet learned their sex. Such slaves, when captured, if not slain in disgust by the victors, were usually herded together like slave girls, and chained for disposition in markets catering to their form of merchandise, markets patronized largely by free women. To be sure, there were virile male slaves in Ar. For example, many of the fellows who attended to the great refuse vats usually kept at the foot of the stairs in insulae were male slaves. Usually they worked under the direct or indirect supervision of free men. occasionally they would be treated to a dram of paga or thrown a kettle girl for the evening.
'I would have thought,' said Marcus, 'that Ar might have rejoiced these days to obtain even the services of a lad with a beanshooter.'
'Apparently not,' I said.
'You understand what this means?' asked Marcus.
'Yes,' I said. 'I think I understand what it means.'
'Do you think they will open the gate in the morning?' asked a man.
'Yes,' said another.
'How far is Cos?' Marcus asked a fellow stirring around in his blankets. 'Two days,' said the fellow.
'Ar will be defended to the death,' said a man.
'Perhaps,' said another.
'You are not sure of it?' asked the first.
'No,' said the second.
'Have you heard the latest news?' asked a fellow.
'What?' inquired another.
'It was suddenly in Ar,' said the fellow. 'I heard it just before I was expelled from the city, the gate then closed.'
'What?' asked a man.
'Talena, the daughter of Marlenus, has offered to sacrifice herself for the safety of the city.'
'I do not understand,' said a fellow.
'Tell me of this!' I said.
'Talena has agreed to deliver herself naked, and in the chains of a slave, to the Cosians, if they will but spare Ar!'
'She must never be permitted to do so!' cried a man.
'No!' said another.
'Noble woman!' cried a man.
'Noble Talena!' cried another.
'It is absurd,' said another fellow. 'She is not the daughter of Marlenus. She was disowned by him.'
'And thus,' I said, 'her offer is of no more import than would be the similar offer of any other free woman of Ar.'
'Treason!' said a fellow.
'It is said,' said a fellow,' that she has been a slave.'
'I have heard that,' said a man.
'Marlenus did disown her,' said a man.
'She does not even have her original name restored,' said a man, 'but the merely same name, permitted her, after she was freed.'
'Long was she sequestered in the Central Cylinder,' said another.
'As is Claudia Tentia Hinrabia, of the Hinrabians,' said a man. 'Remember her?'
'Yes,' said a fellow. Claudia Tentia Hinrabie had been the daughter of a former Ubar of Ar, Minus Tentius Hinrabius. When Marlenus had regained the throne he had freed her from a bondage to which Cernus, his foe, who had replaced Minus Tentius Hinrabius on the throne, had seen that she was reduced. I recalled her. She had been a slender, dark-haired beauty, with high cheekbones. She still lived, as I understood it, in the Central Cylinder.
'I, too, have heard it said,' I said, 'that Talena was once a slave, and I have heard it said, as well, that even now she wears on her thigh the mark of Treve, a souvenir of her former bondage to a tarnsman of that city.'
'She is the daughter of Marlenus,' said a man, sullenly.
'She should be Ubara,' said another.
'Her offer to deliver herself to the Cosians, that the city may be spared,' said a fellow, 'is preposterous. When they take the city they can have her, and any other number of free women. The whole thing is absurd.'
'But incredibly noble!' said a fellow.
'Yes,' said another.
'It is an act worthy of one who should be Ubara,' said a man.
I considered these matters, rather interested in them. In making an offer of this sort, of course, Talena was implicitly claiming for herself the status of being a Ubar's daughter, else the offer would have been, as one of the fellows had suggested, absurd. This was, in its way, presenting a title to the throne. It was not as though she were merely one, say, of a thousand free women who were making the same offer.
'Is she asking, say, a thousand other free women to join her in this proposal?' I asked.
'No,' said the fellow.
The extremely interesting thing to my mind would be the Cosian response to this offer. I had little doubt, personally, from what I had learned of the intrigues in Ar that this offer had some role to play in the complicated political games afoot in that metropolis.
At this point a fellow hurried among us. He had come from the darkness, away from the gate. 'Cosians!' he said. Men cried out. Some slaves among us screamed. Some men ran to the wall. Some went to pound and cry at the gate.
'Where?' I asked, standing, my sword drawn. Marcus thrust Phoebe's head farther down, she covered totally by the blanket. He was then beside me, his weapon, too, unsheathed. These were two of the few weapons in the group. These fellows, I realized, could be pinned against the wall and gate, and slaughtered. I made as though to kick the tiny fire out. 'No,' said the man. 'No!'
'Scatter in the darkness!' I said.
'No!' he said.
'They will be on us with blades in an instant!' said a man.
'Let us in!' cried a fellow, upward to the wall, where there were guards. 'They are scouts, skirmishers?' asked Marcus.
'I think so,' said the man.
'Surely they will attack,' said a man.
'Perhaps we can be defended from the walls,' said a man. I did not think that quarrel fire from the walls would be much to our advantage. We would be as likely to be hit, I supposed, as Cosians. Too, it was very dark. Few archers will waste quarrels in such light.
'I think we are in no danger, at least now,' said the man.
'Why do you say that?' I asked.
'Look,' he said. He held his hand near the fire and opened it.
'A silver tarsk!' said a man.
'It was given to me by a Cosian, in the shadows,' said the man, wonderingly. 'I do not understand,' said a man.
'He pressed it into my hand,' said the man, 'when I thought to be spitted by his blade.'
'What did he say?' asked a man.
