We could now hear the flute music quite clearly.

"There!" I said, startled.

I had not realized that so much had been done since my last visit to this area. I hurried forward, to the Wall Road.

A gigantic breach, over four hundred yards in width, had been made in the wall. The bottom of the breach was still some forty or fifty feet high. The edges of is tapered up to the height of the wall on each side, in this area, some hundred to a hundred and twenty feet Gorean above the pavement. The breach swarmed with human beings. Stone after stone was being tumbled down from the walls, to the outside of the city. These, I had heard, on the other side, were being lifted to wagons and carted away. On the walls were not only men of Ar, and male youth, but women and girls, as well.

I stood on the Wall Road, back near Harness Street. Here I was about a hundred feet back from the wall. In moment or two Marcus was again beside me, and Phoebe behind him, on his left. The girl normally heels a right-handed master on the left, that she not encumber the movements of the weapon hand.

"Much progress had been made since last we came here," I said.

"About the walls, here and there, thousands apply themselves," he said.

This was not the only breach in the walls, of course, but it was that which was nearest to our lodgings. Here some hundreds, at least, were laboring. Others, of course, on the other side of the wall, would be gathering up tumbled stone, loading it and removing it from the area. The walls of Ar, in effect, had become a quarry. This would, I suppose, depress the market for stone in various cities, perhaps even as far away as Venna. There were many uses for such stone, but most had to do with materials for building, paving and fill. Much of the stone would be pounded into gravel by prisoners and slaves far from the city. This gravel was used mainly for bedding primary roads and paving secondary roads. There were, at present, nineteen such breaches about the city. These breaches, multiplying the avenues of possible assault on the city, were not randomly located. They were set at tactically optimum sites for such assaults and distributed in such a manner as to require the maximum dispersal of defensive forces. The pursued objective, of course, was to multiply and join breaches, until the razing of the walls of Ar was complete.

"Although I hate Ar," said Marcus, "this sight fills me with sorrow."

"You hate not Ar," I said, "but those who betrayed her, and Ar's Station."

"I despise Ar, and those of Ar," he said.

"Very well," I said.

We continued to regard the work on the walls.

Here and there upon the walls, among those working, were silked flute girls, sometimes sitting cross-legged on large stones, above the heads of workers, sometimes moving about among the workers, some strolling, playing, at other times turning and dancing. Some were also on the lower level, even on the Wall Road.

"Many of the flute girls seem pretty," said Marcus.

"Yes," I said. To be sure, we were rather far from them.

"It is a joke of Lurius of Jad, I gather," said Marcus, "that the walls of Ar should be torn down tot he music of flute girls."

"I would think so," I said.

"What an extreme insult," he said.

"Yes," I said.

"You will note," he said, "that many of the girls sit cross-legged."

"Yes," I said.

"They should be beaten," he said.

"Yes," I said.

On Gor men sit cross-legged, not women. The Gorean female, whether free or slave, whether of low caste or high caste, kneels. This posture on the part of a woman, aping that of men, is a provocation. I had seen panther girls in the north, in their desire to repudiate their own nature, and in their envy of men, adopt such a posture. To be sure, such women, reduced to slavery, quickly learn to kneel and usually, considering their new status, with their knees widely apart. The cross-legged posture of several of the flute girls was undoubtedly an insolence, intended as a further insult to the citizens of Ar.

"Why is it that the men do not punish them?" asked Marcus.

"I do not know," I said.

"Perhaps they are afraid to," he said.

"I think rather it had to do with the new day in Ar, and the new understandings."

"What do you mean?" he said.

"Officially," I said, "the music of the flute girls is supposed to make the work more pleasant."

"Who believes that?" asked Marcus.

"Many may pretend to, or even manage to convince themselves of it," I said. "What of the provocative posture?" asked Marcus. "Surely the insult of that is clear enough to anyone."

"It is supposedly a time of freedom," I said. "Thus why should a good fellow of Ar object if a flute girl sits in a given fashion? Is not everyone to be permitted anything?"

"No," said Marcus, "freedom is for the free. Others are to be kept in line, and exactly so. Society depends on divisions and order, each element stabilized perfectly in it harmonious relationship with all others."

"You do not believe, then," I asked, "that everyone is the same, or must be supposed to be such, despite all evidence to the contrary, and that society thrives best as a disordered struggle?"

Marcus looked at me, startled.

"No," I said. "I see that you do not."

"Do you believe such?" he asked.

"No," I said. "Not any more."

We returned our attention to the wall.

"They work cheerfully, and with a will," said Marcus, in disgust.

"It is said that even numbers of the High Council, as a token, have come to the wall, loosened a stone, and tumbled it down."

"Thus do they demonstrate their loyalty to the state," he said.

"Yes," I said.

"The state of Cos," he said, angrily.

"Many high-caste youth, on the other hand, work side by side with low-caste fellows, dismantling the wall."

"They are levied?" asked Marcus.

"Not the higher castes," I said.

"They volunteer?" he asked.

"Like many of these others," I said.

"Incredible," said he.

"Youth is idealistic," I said.

"Idealistic?" he asked.

"Yes," I said. "They are told that this is a right and noble work, that it is a way of making amends, of atoning for the faults of their city, that it is in the interests of brotherhood, peace, and such."

"Exposing themselves to the blades of strangers?" he asked.

"Perhaps Cos will protect them," I said.

"And who will protect them from Cos?" he asked.

"Who needs protection from friends?" I asked.

"They are not at Ar's Station," he said. "They were not in the delta."

"Idealism comes easier to those who have seen least of the world," I said. "They are fools," said Marcus.

"Not all youth are fools," I said.

He regarded me.

"You are rather young yourself," I said.

"Anyone who cannot detect the insanity of dismantling their own defenses is a fool," said Marcus, "whether they are a young fool or an old one."

"Some are prepared to do such things as a proof of the good will, of their sincerity," I said.

"Incredible," he said.

"But many youth," I said, "as others, recognize the absurdity of such things."

"Perhaps Gnieus Lelius was such a youth," said Marcus.

"Perhaps," I said.

"Perhaps he may reconsider his position, in his cage," said Marcus.

"He has undoubtedly already done so," I said.

"Much good it will do him now," said Marcus.

"Look," I said, "the children."

We saw some children to one side, on the city side of the Wall Road. They had put up a small wall of stones, and they were now pushing it down.

On the wall, in the trough of the breach, we saw four men rolling a heavy stone toward the field side of the wall. A flute gild was parodying, or accompanying, their efforts on the flute, the instrument seeming to strain with them, and then, when they rolled the stone down, she played a skirl of descending notes on the flute, and, spinning about, danced away. The men laughed.