"It is not even a racing tarn," said a man nearby.

I now stood on my feet, stupefied, staring down at the wagons, the birds being brought to the perches.

"They tell me," said Relius, "that the bird is from the city of Ko-ro-ba."

I stood there, not speaking, my limbs weak. Behind me I heard Virginia and Phyllis cry out with pain. I turned a bit to see that Ho-Sorl had a fist in the hair of each, twisting it, pulling their heads back to him. "Slaves," said he, "will not speak of what they see today."

"No, Master!" said Virginia.

"No, no!" cried Phyllis. Ho-Sorl's hand twisted her head and hair cruelly. "No, Master!" cried Phyllis. "No, Master! Phyllis will not speak!"

I turned to my left and began to follow the tier, until I came to a narrow set of stairs, leading to the lower portions of the stands, which I then followed, descending.

I heard Relius behind me. "Take this," he said. He pushed something into my hand, something like a folded cloth of leather. I scarcely noticed. Then he was left on the stairs, and I was descending again, alone. Near the railing of the front tier, I stopped.

I was now some forty yards from the birds. I stood still.

Then, as though searching for me in those multitudes, that turbulence of faces and cloth, of sound, of cries, I saw the gleaming eyes of the tarn cease their scanning and fasten upon me. The wicked, black eyes, round and blazing with light, did not leave me. The crest on its head seemed to lift and each muscle and fiber in that great body seemed filled with blood and life. The vast, long black wings, broad and mighty, opened and struck against the air, hurling a storm of dust and sand on all sides, almost tumbling the small, hooded Tarn Keeper from the low wagon. Then the tarn threw back its head and once more screamed, wild, eerie, fierce, savage, a cry that might have struck terror into the heart of a larl, but I did not fear it. I saw the talons of the tarn were shod with steel. It was, of course, a war tarn.

I looked down at the wad of leather in my hand. I opened it, and drew on the hood concealing my features. I leaped over the rail and strode to the bird.

"Greetings, Mip," said I, mounting to the platform, seeing the small Tarn Keeper.

"You are Gladius of Cos," said he.

I nodded. "What is the meaning of this?" I asked.

"You ride for the Steels," said he.

I reached up and touched the fierce, curved beak of that mighty bird. And then I held it, and pressed my cheek to its fierce surface. The tarn, that predator, gently lowered its head, and I put my head against its head, below its round, gleaming right eye, and, within the leather hood, unseen, I wept. "It has been long, Ubar of the Skies," I said. "It has been long."

Vaguely I was aware about me of the sounds of men, tense, speaking curt words, mounting into the high saddles of tarns.

I sensed Mip near me.

"Do not forget what I have taught you in the Stadium of Tarns," said Mip, "as we have ridden together so many nights."

"I will not," I said.

"Mount," said Mip.

I climbed to the saddle of the tarn, and when Mip unlocked the hobble from its right foot, took it to the starting perch.

17 — KAJURALIA

"Kajuralia!" cried the slave girl hurling a basket of Sa-Tarna flour on me, and turning and running. I had caught up with her in five steps and kissed her roundly, swatted her and sent her packing.

"Kajuralia yourself!" I said laughing, and she, laughing, sped away.

About that time a large pan of warm water splashed down on me from a window some sixteen feet above the street level. Wringing wet I glared upward.

I saw a girl in the window, who blew me a kiss, a slave girl. "Kajuralia!" she cried and laughed.

I raised my fist and shook it and her head disappeared from the window.

A Builder, whose robes were stained with thrown fruit, hastily strode by. "You had better be indoors," said he, "on Kajuralia."

Three male house slaves stumbled by, crowned with odorous garlands woven of the Brak Bush. They were passing about a bota of paga and, between dancing and trying to hold one another up, managed to weave unsteadily by. One of them looked at me and from his eyes I judged he may have seen at least three of me and offered me a swig of the bota, which I took. "Kajuralia," said he, nearly falling over backwards, being rescued by one of his fellows, who seemed fortunately to be falling in the opposite direction at the same time. I gave him a silver coin for more paga. "Kajuralia," I said, and turned about, leaving, while they collapsed on one another.

At that time a slave girl, a blond girl, sped by and the three slaves, stumbling, bleary-eyed, bumping into one another, dutifully took up her pursuit. She turned, laughing in front of them, would run a bit, then stop, and then when they had nearly caught up with her, she would run on again. But, to her astonishment, coming up from behind, catching her by surprise, another male seized her about the waist and held her, while she screamed in mock fear. But in a moment it was determined, to the rage of all save the girl, that she wore an iron belt. "Kajuralia!" she laughed, wiggled free and sped away.

I dodged a hurled larma fruit which splattered on the wall of a cylinder near me.

The wall itself was covered with writing and pictures, none of it much complimentary to the masters of the area.

I heard some breaking of pottery around the corner, some angry cries, the laughing of girls.

I decided I had better return to the House of Cernus.

I turned down another street. Here, unexpectedly, I ran into a pack of some fifteen or twenty girls who, shrieking and laughing, surrounded me in a moment. I found myself wishing that masters belled their girls of Kajuralia, so that they might be heard approaching. Their silence in the street a moment before I had turned into it told me they had been hunting. They had probably even had spies, advance scouts. Now they crowded about me, laughing, seizing my arms.

"Prisoner! Prisoner!" they shrieked.

I felt a rope thrown about my throat; it was drawn unpleasantly tight.

It was held in the hand of a black-haired girl, collared of course, long-legged, in brief slave livery.

"Greetings," said she, "Warrior." She jerked menacingly on the rope. "You are now the slave of the girls of the Street of Pots," she informed me.

I felt five or six more ropes suddenly looped about me, drawn tight. Two girls had even, behind me, darted unseen to my ankles, and in an instant had looped and drawn tight ropes on them. My feet could be thus jerked from beneath me should I attempt to run or struggle.

"What shall we do with this prisoner?" asked the black-haired girl of her fellows.

Numerous suggestions were forthcoming. "Take off his clothes!" "Brand him!" "The whip!" "Put him in a collar!"

"Now look here," I said.

But they had now set off down the street, dragging me along amongst them.

We stopped when I was pushed stumbling into a large room, in which there were numerous baskets and harnesses hanging about, apparently a storeroom of sorts in an unimportant cylinder. A wide area had been cleared in the center of the room, on which, over straw, had been spread some rep-cloth blankets. Against one wall there were two men, bound hand and foot. One was a Warrior, the other a handsome young Tarn Keeper. "Kajuralia," said the Warrior to me, wryly.

"Kajuralia," I said to him.

The black-haired girl, the tall girl, walked back and forth before me, her hands on her hips. She also strode over to the other two men, and then she returned to me.

"Not a bad catch," said she.

The other girls laughed and shrieked. Some leaped up and down and clapped their hands.