I lifted my head and got up on my elbows, looking at her.

"Are you serious?" I asked.

"Yes," said Nela, bitterly, "let her be branded and collared. Let her be forced to please men."

"Why do you hate her so?" I asked.

"She is free," said Nela, "and of high birth and rich. Let such women, I say, feel the iron. Let it be they who dance to the whip."

"You should feel sorry for her," I recommended.

Nela threw back her head and laughed.

"She is probably an innocent girl," I said.

"She once had the nose and ears of one of her girls cut off for having dropped a mirror," said Nela.

"How do you know that?" I asked.

The girl laughed. "Everything that goes on in Ar," she said, "is heard in the Capacian." Then she looked at me bitterly. "I hope she is made a slave," she said. "I hope she is sold in Port Kar."

I gathered that Nela must hate the Hinrabian girl much indeed.

"Are the Hinrabians popular in Ar?" I asked.

Nela stopped massaging my back.

"Do not answer if you do not wish," I said.

"No," she said, and I could sense her looking about. "They are not popular."

"What of Kazrak?" I asked.

"He was a good Administrator," she said. "He is gone now."

She began to massage my back. The oil was fragrant. It felt warm from her hands.

"When I was a little girl," she said, "when I was free I once saw Marlenus of Ar."

"Oh?" I asked.

"He," she said, "was the Ubar of Ubars." There was something of awe in her voice.

"Perhaps," I said, "someday Marlenus will return."

"Do not speak so," she whispered. "Men have been impaled in Ar for less."

"I understand he is in the Voltai," I said.

"Minus Tentuis Hinrabius," she said, "has a dozen times sent Prides of a hundred Warriors to the Voltai to seek him out and slay him, but never have they found him."

"Why should he wish to slay him?" I asked.

"They fear him," she said. "They fear he will return to Ar."

"Impossible," I said.

"In these days," she said, "much is possible."

"Would you like to see him again in Ar?" I asked.

"He was," said the girl, her voice proud, "the Ubar of Ubars." Her hands were powerful now, and I could feel the thrill in her. "When he was publicly refused bread, salt and fire on the height of the central cylinder, when he was exiled from Ar, not to return on pain of death, do you know what he said?"

"No," I said, "I do not."

"He said 'I will come again to Ar'."

"Surely you do not believe it," I said.

"I could speak to you of things I have heard," she said, "but it is better that you not know of them."

"As you wish," I said.

I heard her voice, something of awe in it. "He said," she repeated, " 'I will come again to Ar'."

"Would you like to see him once more upon the throne?" I asked.

She laughed. "I am of Ar," she said. "He was Marlenus. He was the Ubar of Ubars!"

I rolled over, took Nela by the wrists, drew her to me and kissed her. I saw no reason to tell her that this very afternoon, in the arcade of the stadium, I had seen Marlenus of Ar.

Upon leaving the baths I encountered by chance a the Tarn Keeper whom I had met briefly when observing the game outside the tavern of Spindius, that fought between the blind Player and the Vintner. He was short, small, with close-cropped brown hair. He had a rather heavy, squarish face, large considering his size. I saw he ware a patch of green on his shoulder, indicating he was of the Greens.

"I see you now wear the red of the Warrior," said he, "rather than the black of the Assassin."

I said nothing.

"I know disguises are useful," said he, "in hunting." He grinned at me. "I liked what you did at the game, when you gave the double tarn to the Player."

"He did not accept it," I said. "To him it was black gold."

"And so it was," said the Tarn Keeper, "so it was."

"It will buy as much as yellow gold," said I.

"True," said the Tarn Keeper, "and that is what must be kept in mind."

I turned to go.

"If you are intending to go to table in the neighborhood," said he, "may I accompany you?"

"Of course," said I.

"I know a good tavern," said he, "which favors the Greens. Many of the faction eat and drink there after the races."

"Good," I said. "I am hungry and would drink. Take me to this place."

The tavern, like the Capacian Baths, was within fair walking distance of the stadium. It was called, appropriately enough, the Green Tarn, and the proprietor was a genial fellow, bald and red-nosed, called Kliimus. The Pleasure Slaves who served wore green Pleasure Silk, and the tops of the tables and the walls were also painted green; even the curtains on the alcoves by one wall were green. About the walls, here and there, were lists and records, inked on narrow boards; there were also, here and there, hanging on the walls, some memorabilia, such as saddle rings and tarn harnesses, suitably labeled as to their origin; there were also representations of tarns and some drawings of famous riders, who had brought victory to the Greens.

Tonight, however, the tavern was relatively subdued, for the day had not been a good one for the Greens. And, instead of racing, many were discussing the case of the daughter of the Hinrabian Administrator, speculating on her whereabouts, arguing about how the abduction, if abduction it was, could possibly have taken place within earshot of dozens of Taurentian guardsmen. There had apparently been no tarns near the central cylinder during the time, and, according to report, no strangers were known to have entered the cylinder. It was a mystery suitable to start all Ar conjecturing.

The Tarn Keeper, who was called by those in the tavern Mip, bought the food, bosk steak and yellow bread, peas and Torian olives, and two golden-brown, starchy Suls, broken open and filled with melted bosk cheese. I bought the Paga and several times we refilled our cups. Mip was a chipper fellow, and a bit dapper considering his caste and his close-cropped hair, for his brown leather was shot with green streaks, and he wore a Tarn Keeper's cap with a greenish tassel; most Tarn Keepers, incidentally, crop their hair short, as do most Metal Workers; work in the tarncots and in training tarns is often hard, sweaty work.

Mip, for some reason, seemed to like me, and he spoke much during the evening, as we drank together, of the factions, of the organizations of the races, of the training of tarns and riders, of the hopes of the greens and the other factions, of given riders and given birds. I suspected few knew as much of the races of Ar as Mip.

After we had eaten and drunk together, clapping me on the shoulders, Mip invited me to the tarncot where he worked, one of the large cots of the Greens.

I was pleased to accompany him for I had never seen a faction cot before.

We walked through the dark streets of Ar, and though such was perhaps dangerous, none approached us, though some who passed did so with circumspection, their weapons drawn. I expect the fact that I walked as a Warrior, a sword at my side, perhaps dissuaded individuals who might otherwise have attempted to cut a purse or threaten a throat were they not rewarded for leniency. There are few on Gor who will take their lives into their hands by confronting a Gorean Warrior.

The cot was one of six in a vast and lofty cylinder containing many of the offices and dormitories of those associated professionally with the Greens. Their records and stores, and treasures, are kept in this cylinder, though it is only one of four they maintain in the city.

The tarncot in which Mip worked was the largest and, I was pleased to note, he was the senior Tarn Keeper in the place, though there were several employed there. The cot was a huge room beneath the roof of the cylinder, taking up what normally would be four floors of the cylinder. The perches were actually a gigantic, curving framework of tem-wood four stories high, and following the circular wall of the cylinder. Many of the perches were empty, but there were more than a hundred birds in the room; each was now chained to its area of the perch; but each, I knew, at least once in every two days, was exercised; sometimes, when men do not wander freely in the cot, and the portals of the cot, opening to the sky, are closed, some of the birds are permitted the freedom of the cot; water for the birds is fed from tubes into cannisters mounted on triangular platforms near the perches, but there is also, in the center of the cot, in the floor, a cistern which may be used when the birds are free.