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, 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 seems,' said Talena of the woman, 'that two years ago, in the great theater, you were overheard making a remark concerning your future Ubara, one in which you expressed disapproval of her restoration to citizenship.' The woman regarded her, aghast.
'You are chosen,' said Talena.
The woman was dragged to the side, to be knelt and manacled. In a moment or so I had added her to the chain.
'No,' said Talena, 'not that one, dismissing the next woman.
I looked after the woman who had just been added to the chain, who had now been ordered to her feet, and moved to the first scratch mark on the tiles. In three or four months, if not sooner, I suspected she would have become a hot, obedient, excitingly curved slave.
'No,' said Talena, 'not this one either.'
Talena was then ready to dismiss another woman but something was called to her attention from the list held by the representative of the High Council, and that woman, too, was consigned to the chain. I gathered that she, or perhaps some relative of hers, had offended some member of the current council. Another woman, similarly, later, whom Talena seemed prepared to dismiss, she reconsidered and selected, apparently at the request or suggestion of one of the Cosians on the dais. As he was not likely to be a party to the internal intrigues in Ar, and such, I supposed it was merely that the woman had appealed to him. Perhaps he regarded her as the sort whom Cosians would enjoy having serve their banquets, moving among the tables, bearing platters of viands, or pouring wine, or such, or perhaps merely lying on their bellies or backs beside their small tables at such banquets, ready, too, to serve.
'No,' said Talena, apropos of the next female, 'not she.'
The free, native population of Ar, though there are no certain figures on the matter even in the best of times, and, given the flight of many from the city, conjectures have become even more hazardous, is commonly estimated at between two and three million people. Itinerants, resident aliens and such would add, say, another quarter million to these figures. It is, at any rate, clearly the most populous city of known Gor, exceeding even Turia, in the southern hemisphere. Slaves, incidentally, are not counted in population statistics, any more than sleen, verr, tarsks and such. There were perhaps a quarter million slaves in Ar, the great majority of which were female.
'Nor she, either,' said Talena.
What was going on on the platform was of great interest to me. As is probably well known, females on Gor, like gold and silver, and domestic animals, and such, commonly count as legitimate loot. Certainly there is no doubt about this in the case of the female slave, who is a property, a domestic animal, to begin with. On the other hand, it should also be understood that the free women of a conquered city, or territory, if spared, are also commonly understood as, and ranked as, in their own minds and in that of the conquerors, as loot. It is one thing, of course, for a fellow in a flaming city to throw a woman against a wall and tear off her clothes and then, if her likes her, keep her, and quite another for the women of a conquered city, levied, and in the name of reparation, atonement, and such, to line up for their assessment. 'Yes,' said Talena, 'she is chosen.' Another woman then, a blonde, was manacled, brought down the ramp and, by me, added to the chain.
The rumor was that Cos had set the first levy on free females from Ar at only ten thousand. If one supposes, as a conservative estimate, that there were now some two million native citizens of Ar, and that half of them, say, are female, then the levy on free females in Ar was thus only about one in every one hundred. To be sure, this was merely the first levy. It was difficult to estimate the numbers of female slaves seized by Cos, just as the number of verr and such. There were apparently levies for such slaves but, as certain forms of looting and taxation, they were not much publicized. Such slaves, like jewelry, Torian rugs, silver plate, verr, and such, tended to be seized largely as a result of house-to-house searches. More than once I had seen a begging, tearful slave town from the arms of a beloved master, to be bound and led away on a Cosian leash. Similarly there were numerous confiscations of slaves.
'Ludmilla, Lady of Ar,' called the scribe. 'Ludmilla, Lady of Ar!'
Guardsmen looked at one another.
'No,' said Talena. 'Ludmilla, Lady of Ar, had been excused, because of her contributions to Ar, because of her service to the state.'
The two scribes, holding the copies of the master list, made appropriate notations. The guardsmen relaxed.
I wondered if the Ludmilla in question was the woman who owned several slave brothels on the street known as The Alley of the Slave Brothels of Ludmilla, the street receiving its name, of course, from the fact that several of its slave brothels were hers. They are, or were, I believe, the Chains of Gold, supposedly the best, or at least the most expensive, and then, all cheap tarsk-bit brothels, the Silken Cords, the Scarlet Whip, the Slave Racks and the Tunnels. I had once patronized the Tunnels. That was where, as I have mentioned, I had met, and improved, the Earth-girl slave, Louise. I had also once resided in the insula of Achiates, which is located on the same street.
At that point the bar for the fifteenth Ahn sounded from the Central Cylinder, across the city.
'I am weary,' said Talena.
'Such work is trying,' said the representative of the High Council, solicitously.
The scribes put their marking sticks away. They closed their wood-bound tablets, tying them shut. The women yet to be assessed looked at one another. 'Turn about,' said a guardsman. 'Am I to be selected or not?' asked the second woman in the line, anxiously. 'Doubtless, given your position in line,' said the guardsmen, 'you will learn tomorrow.'
'I must wait?' she asked. 'Yes,' he said. 'Now turn about, do not look back.' The assessments, of course,
