"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 had to do with structure in human society, without which 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 tyraness 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 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!" wept 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 his moment? Is my name not first on your list? Relish the 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 it 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 had 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.

"But your political ambitions are soon to be at an end," said Talena.

"Citizens, I implore you not to listen to her," cried Claudia.

"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, citizens," 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 in Ar, before the accession of your father, the infamous Minus Tentius Hinrabius, to the chair of 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 anotehr.

"Speak," said Talena, amused.

"Twice I have 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, 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!"

"The rejoice as I order you imbonded!" 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!"