"Her offer to deliver herself to the Cosians, that the city may be spared," said a fellow, "is preposterous. When they take the city they can have her, and any other number of free women. The whole thing is absurd."

"But incredibly noble!" said a fellow.

"Yes," said another.

"It is an act worthy of one who should be Ubara," said a man.

I considered these matters, rather interested in them. In making an offer of this sort, of course, Talena was implicitly claiming for herself the status of being a Ubar's daughter, else the offer would have been, as one of the fellows had suggested, absurd. This was, in its way, presenting a title to the throne. It was not as though she were merely one, say, of a thousand free women who were making the same offer.

"Is she asking, say, a thousand other free women to join her in this proposal?" I asked.

"No," said the fellow.

The extremely interesting thing to my mind would be the Cosian response to this offer. I had little doubt, personally, from what I had learned of the intrigues in Ar that this offer had some role to play in the complicated political games afoot in that metropolis.

At this point a fellow hurried among us. He had come from the darkness, away from the gate. "Cosians!" he said. Men cried out. Some slaves among us screamed. Some men ran to the wall. Some went to pound and cry at the gate.

"Where?" I asked, standing, my sword drawn. Marcus thrust Phoebe's head farther down, she covered totally by the blanket. He was then beside me, his weapon, too, unsheathed. These were two of the few weapons in the group. These fellows, I realized, could be pinned against the wall and gate, and slaughtered. I made as though to kick the tiny fire out. "No," said the man. "No!"

"Scatter in the darkness!" I said.

"No!" he said.

"They will be on us with blades in an instant!" said a man.

"Let us in!" cried a fellow, upward to the wall, where there were guards. "They are scouts, skirmishers?" asked Marcus.

"I think so," said the man.

"Surely they will attack," said a man.

"Perhaps we can be defended from the walls," said a man. I did not think that quarrel fire from the walls would be much to our advantage. We would be as likely to be hit, I supposed, as Cosians. Too, it was very dark. Few archers will waste quarrels in such light.

"I think we are in no danger, at least now," said the man.

"Why do you say that?" I asked.

"Look," he said. He held his hand near the fire and opened it.

"A silver tarsk!" said a man.

"It was given to me by a Cosian, in the shadows," said the man, wonderingly. "I do not understand," said a man.

"He pressed it into my hand," said the man, "when I thought to be spitted by his blade."

"What did he say?" asked a man.

"That Cos was our friend," said the man.

"How many were there?" I asked.

"Only a few, I think," said the man.

"Scouts, or skirmishers," I said to Marcus.

"It would seem so," he said.

"What shall we do now?" asked a man.

"We will wait her," said a man, "until the gate opens."

"It is only an Ahn until dawn," said a man.

I looked out into the darkness. Out there, somewhere, were Cosians. I then looked at the fellow who had recently joined us. He was sitting by the tiny fire now, trembling. He was perhaps cold. His fist was clenched. In it, I gathered, was a silver tarsk.

"I do not think Ar will choose to defend itself," I said.

"I do not think so either," said Marcus, softly.

"Doubtless that is why there were no recruiting tables," I said.

"Undoubtedly," he said.

Marcus and I turned to the street for a moment, to watch a company of guardsmen, at quick march, hasten by, their bootlike sandals, coming high on the calf, resounding on the stones.

"Ar will defend herself to the death," said a man.

"Yes," said another.

I looked after the retreating guardsmen. I doubted if there were more than fifteen hundred such in the city.

"There is no danger," said a man.

"No," said another.

"The tarn wire will protect us," said a man.

"Our gates are impregnable," said another. "Our walls cannot be breached."

"No," said another.

How little these fellows knew of the ways of war, I thought.

"Here it is," said Marcus, calling back to me, "on the public boards." The public boards are posting areas, found at many points in Ar, usually in plazas and squares. These boards were along the Avenue of the Central Cylinder, and were state boards, on which official communiquA©s, news releases, announcements and such, could be posted. Some boards are maintained by private persons, who sell space on them for advertising, notifications, and personal messages. To be sure, many folks, presumably poorer folks, or at least folks less ready to part with a tarsk bit, simply inscribe their messages, in effect as graffiti, on pillars, walls of buildings, and such. Too, posters, and such, usually hand-inked, are common in public places, usually put up by the owners or managers of palestrae, or gymnasiums, public baths, taverns, race courses, theaters, and such. Sales of tharlarion and slaves, too, are commonly thusly advertised. Heralds and criers, too, and carriers of signs, are not unknown. Some proprietors rent space in their shops or places of business for small postings. So, too, similarly, some homeowners who live on busy streets charge a fee for the use of their exterior walls. There are many other forms of communication and advertising as well, such as the parades of acrobats, jugglers, clowns, animal trainers, mimes and such, and the passage of flatbedded display wagons through the streets on which snatches of performances, intended to whet the viewer's interests, are presented, or, say, slaves are displayed usually decorously clad, in connection with imminent sales at various markets and barns. The viewer, or the male viewer, at any rate, understands that the decorous attire of the imbonded beauties of the moving platform is not likely to be worn in the exposition cages or on the block. There is a Gorean saying that only a fool buys a woman clothed. On these platforms the women are usually chained only by an ankle, that there will be but little interference with their movements and their appeals to the crowds. On the other hand, some owners, who prefer more obvious restraints for their women, who are, after all, slaves, use flatbedded wagons with mounted slave bars of various sorts, sometimes with intricate chainings or couplings. Similarly, stout, multiply locked cage wagons may be used for a similar purpose.

"I see," I said, reading the boards.

"I have heard," said a man, near me, speaking to another, "that many other free women, like Talena herself, have offered themselves as slaves, that the city be spared."

"There is nothing to that effect here on the public boards," said the other fellow.

"True," said the first.

"Read to me," begged a fellow looking up at the boards. "I cannot read. What does it say?"

"Greetings from Lurius of Jad, Ubar of Cos, to the people of Glorious Ar," read a man, rather slowly, pointing to letters with his fingers, which led me to believe that his literacy was not likely to be much advanced over that of the other. To be sure, I myself did not read Gorean fluently, as the alternate lines changed direction. The first line is commonly written left to right, the second from right to left, and so on. Cursive script is, of course, at least for me, even more difficult. In particular I find it difficult to write. In defense I might point out that I can print Gorean fairly well, and can sign my name with a deftness which actually suggests to those who do not know better that I am fully literate in the language. In further defense I might point out that many warriors, for no reason that is clear to me, seem to take pride in a putative lack of literacy. Indeed, several fellows I have known, of the scarlet caste, take pains to conceal their literacy, seemingly ashamed of an expertise in such matters, regarding such as befitting scribes rather than warriors. Thus, somewhat to my embarrassment, I found I fitted in well with such fellows. I have known, incidentally, on the other hand, several warriors who were quite unapologetic about literacy interests and capacities, men who were, for example, gifted historians, essayists and poets.