"Go to the barracks of guardsmen," said he.

"Perhaps," I said.

"I would now leave this area," he said. "Too, I would not attempt to interfere with the work on the walls."

"I understand," I said.

"That is a pretty slave," he said.

"She belongs to my friend," I said. Phoebe shrank back a bit, closer to Marcus. Female slaves on Gor must grown used to being looked upon frankly by men, and assessed as the properties they are. They know they can be acquired, and disposed of, and bought and sold, and traded, and such, with ease, even at a moment's notice.

"Is she of Ar?" he asked.

"No," said Marcus.

"Are you sure?" asked the guardsmen.

"Yes," said Marcus.

"Many women of Ar look well in slave tunics, barefoot and collared," he said. "Undoubtedly," I said.

"They should all be slaves," he said.

"So should all women," I said.

"True," he said.

To be sure, it did amuse me to think of the proud women of Ar, of "Glorious Ar," as slaves. Such a fare seemed to me fully appropriate for them, and in particular for some of them.

"Let us return to our lodgings," I said to Marcus.

"I wish you well," said the guardsman.

"I, too, wish you well," I said.

"I must now put these tame cattle of Ar back to work," he said.

"One man alone?" I asked.

"No more are needed," he said.

Indeed, there were no guardsmen on the walls themselves. We had encountered one on the way to the wall, on Harness Street, who had detained us briefly, apparently primarily to determine whether or not we were of Ar.

"We shall leave now," said Marcus.

"Yes, Master," said Phoebe.

We then turned about, and left the vicinity of the Wall Road. Near the entrances to Harness Street, off the Wall Road, I turned about.

"Continue your work for peace!" called the guardsmen to those on the wall. The men on the wall then, and the youth, and women, returned to their labors. "Incredible," marveled Marcus.

"Master," moaned Phoebe.

Things were then much as they had been before. Nothing had changed. To be sure, the work was not now being performed to the music of flute girls. Tomorrow, however, I did not doubt but what the flute girls would be back, and numerous guards in attendance, at least on the street.

"Is your sword for hire?" I asked Marcus.

"It could be," he said.

"Good," I said.

"You have some plan?" he asked.

"Of course," I said.

"Master," whimpered Phoebe.

Marcus stopped and looked at her.

She, too, stopped, and looked up at him.

"Strip," he said.

She looked at him, suddenly, wildly, and then about herself. "This is a public street," she said.

He did not speak.

She squirmed. "Is there no doorway? No sheltered place?" she asked.

He did not respond to her.

"I was a woman of Cos," she said, tears springing to her eyes. "This is a public street in Ar!"

His expression remained impassive. He maintained his silence.

"Cos has defeated Ar!" she wept.

He did not speak.

"Am I to suffer because you are angry with the men of Ar?" she asked.

"Does the slave dally in her obedience?" he inquired.

"No, Master!" she said, frightened.

"Must a command be repeated?" he inquired.

"No, Master!" she cried. Her tiny fingers began to fumble with the knot of the slave girdle, on her left. Then she had the knot loose and pulled away the girdle. She then, hastily, struggling a little with it, pulled the tunic, a light pullover tunic, off, over her head. "The slave obeys her master!" she gasped, frightened, kneeling before him. He then tied her hands behind her back with the slave girdle and thrust the tiny tunic, folded, crosswise, in her mouth, so that she would bite on it. He then pushed her head down to the stones. "Are you now less angry with the men of Ar?" I asked him, in an Ehn or two. Marcus stood up, adjusting his tunic.

"Yes," he said.

Phoebe turned about, from her knees, the tunic between her teeth, and looked back at us.

"This had little to do with you," I told her. "Too, it is immaterial that you were once of Cos. A slave, you must understand, must sometimes serve such purposed." Her eyes were wide. But one of the utilities of a slave, of course, is to occasionally serve as the helpless object upon which the master may vent his dissatisfaction, his frustration or anger. Too, of course, they may serve many other related purposes, such as the relief of tensions, to relax oneself and even to calm oneself for clear thought.

"Do you understand?" I asked.

She nodded.

I regarded her.

She whimpered, once.

"Good," I said.

One whimper signifies "Yes," and two signifies "No." This arrangement, at any rate, was the one which Marcus had taught to Phoebe long ago, quite early in her slavery to him, at a time when she had been much more often kept bound and gagged then now.

Marcus then snapped his fingers that she should rise.

She leaped to her feet.

We turned our steps once more toward our lodging. Phoebe hurried behind. Once she tried, whimpering, to press herself against her master. She looked up at him, tears in her eyes, her hands tied behind her, the tunic between her teeth. She feared that she might have now, because of her earlier behavior, lapsed in his favor. Too, compounding her misery, was doubtless the fact that Marcus, in his casual usage of her, had done little more than intensify her needs, the helpless prisoner of which, as a slave girl, she was. He thrust her back. we then continued on our way, Phoebe heeling her master. I heard her gasp once or twice, and sob. She was now, I was sure, much more aware, in her own mind, of what it was to be a slave. I do not think, then, she thought of herself any longer, really, as a woman of Cos, or even one who had once been of Cos, but rather now as merely a slave, only that, and one who had perhaps, frighteningly, to her trepidation and misery, failed to be fully pleasing. I did not doubt that later, when we had reached the room, and she was unbound and freed of the gag, that she would crawl to Marcus on all fours, the whip between her teeth, begging. Too, though he loved her muchly, I did not doubt but what he would use it on her. She was, after all, his slave, and he, after all, was her master.

9 The Plaza of Tarns

"She," said Talena, Ubara of Ar, "she is chosen"

The woman uttered a cry of anguish.

There were cheers, and applause, the striking of the left shoulder, from the crowd standing about the edges of the huge, temporary platform, the same which had earlier served near the Central Cylinder for the welcoming of Myron, in his entrance into the city.

The woman, held now by the upper left arm, by a guardsman, was conducted to a point on the platform, erected now in the Plaza of Tarns, a few feet from a rather narrow, added side ramp, where she was knelt, to be manacled. This smaller, added ramp would be on the left side of the platform, as one would face it. My own position was near to, and rather at the foot of this ramp, such that I would be on the right of a person descending the ramp. Talena, with certain aides and counselors, and guardsmen and scribes, was on a dais, it mounted on the surface of the platform, a few feet away, rather to its left, as one would face it. There was a similar added ramp on the other side, by means of which the women, barefoot, and clad at that point in the robe of the penitent, would ascend to its surface.

The manacles were closed about the wrists of the kneeling woman, one could clearly hear the decisive closure of the devices, first the one, then the other. She lifted them, regarding them, disbelievingly.

"Have you never worn chains?" asked a man.

First with one hand and then the other, suddenly, frenziedly, first from one wrist, and then from the other, sobbing, she tried to force the obdurate iron from her wrist.