Then, again, she lifted the manacles, regarding them, disbelievingly.

"Yes, they are on you," laughed a fellow.

"You cannot slip them," said a man.

"They were not made to be slipped by such as you," said another.

There was much laughter.

The woman sobbed.

"Do not blubber, female," said a man. "Rejoice, rather, that you have been found suitable, that you have been honored by having been chosen!" the woman, then, conducted by another fellow, with an armband, signifying the auxiliary guardsmen, the first fellow, a uniformed guardsman, returning to the group on the platform, was conducted down the ramp. She was knelt before me. "Wrists," I said. She lifted her chained wrists. I then, by means of the chain, pulled her wrists toward me. I inserted the bolt of a small, sturdy, padlocklike joining ring through a link in the coffle chain. This would hold it in a specific place on the chain, preventing slippage. I then snapped the ring shut about her wrist chain. She looked up at me, coffled.

"On your feet, move," said another auxiliary guardsman.

She rose to her feet and moved ahead, to the first line scratched in the tiles of the plaza. There were some one hundred such lines, each about four or five feet apart, marking places for women to stand. As she moved ahead, so, too, did others. Beyond these hundred spaces the chain moved to the side, and was doubled, and folded back upon itself, again and again, in this fashion keeping its prisoners massed., different lines facing different directions, and all in the vicinity of the platform.

"It angers me," said a fellow nearby, "that these women should complain. It is as simple enough duty to perform, and a worthy enough act, as female citizens, given the guilt of Ar, her complicity in the wicked schemes of Gnieus Lelius, to offer themselves for reparation considerations.

"Few enough are chosen anyway," said a fellow.

"Yes," said another, angrily.

"Are all burdens to be borne only by men?" asked a man.

"What of the work levies and such?" said another.

"Yes," said another.

"And the taxed and special assessments," said another.

"True," said a fellow.

"They are citizens of Ar," said another. "It is only right that they, too, pay the price for our misdeeds."

"And theirs," said another.

"Yes," said a fellow.

"They supported members of councils, and members to elect members of councils," said a man.

"Yes!" said another.

"Look at noble Talena," said a man. "How bravely she performs this duty."

"How onerous it must be for her," said a man.

"Poor Talena," said a fellow.

"She, too, it might be recalled," said a man, "appeared in public barefoot, in the garb of a penitent, prepare to offer herself to save Ar."

"Of course," said a man.

"Noble woman," breathed a man.

Auxiliary guardsmen do not wear helmets. I had, accordingly, covered my head and, loosely, the lower portion of my face with a scarf, rather in the manner of the fellows in the Tahari. This fitted in well with the motley garbs of auxiliary guardsmen who, on the whole, had little in common except that they were not of Ar. Regular guardsmen of Ar were, as I have suggested, fellows of Ar under Cosian command, or, often, Cosians, in the uniform of Ar. Too, as mentioned, there were regulars of Cos in the city, and, at any given time, various mercenaries, usually on passes. Some mercenaries, it might be mentioned, had been transferred into the auxiliary guardsmen. Some others, discharged, had enlisted in these units. A good deal of the sensitive work in Ar, work which might possibly produce resentment, or even enflame resistance, was accorded to auxiliary guardsmen. Their actions, if necessary, could always be deplored or disavowed. If necessary, some units might even be disbanded, as a token of conciliation. Such units are, after all, difficult to control. In this I saw further evidence of attention on the part of Myron, or his advisors, to the principles and practices of Dietrich of Tarnburg. A similar device, incidentally, though not one employed by Dietrich of Tarnburg, at least to my knowledge, is to recruit such forces from the dregs of a city itself, utilizing their resentment of, and their hatred for, their more successful fellow citizens to constitute a vain, suspicious and merciless force. This force then may later be disbanded, or even destroyed, to the delight of the other citizens, who then will see their conqueror as their protector, not even understanding his use of, and sacrifice of, such instrumentalities as the duped dregs of their own community, first making use of them, then disposing of them.

"No," said Talena, "not her."

A guardsman, on the surface of the platform, before the dais, draped the robe of the penitent about the shoulders of the woman before Talena. He did this deferentially. She was shuddering. Another guardsman quickly ushered her to the rear and down the large ramp at the rear of the platform. She would now return home.

"No, Talena!" called a fellow from the crowd, a few feet away.

Talena regally turned her head in his direction.

"Be silent!" said a man to he who had called out.

"Hail, Talena!" called a man from the vicinity of the fellow who had called out before.

"Glory to Talena!" called another.

"Glory to Talena!" cried others.

She then returned her attention to her duties on the platform.

"How merciful is Talena," said a fellow.

"Yes," said another.

At a gesture from one of the guardsmen on the platform, another woman in a white robe came forward, leaving the long line behind her, one extending across the platform to the small ramp on the other side, down the ramp, across the far side of the Plaza of Tarns, and thence down Gate Street, where I could not see its end.

"Lady Tuta Thassolonia," read a scribe.

Lady Tuta then, unaided, removed her robe and stood before her Ubara. Then she knelt before her.

Men gasped.

She knelt back on her heels, her knees spread, her back straight, her head up, the palms of her hands on her thighs.

"It seems you are a slave," said Talena.

"I have always been a slave, Mistress," said Lady Tuta.

Talena turned to one of her counselors, and they conferred.

"Are you a legal slave, my child?" asked one of the counselors, a scribe of the law.

"No, Master," said the woman.

"You are then a legally free female?" asked the scribe.

"Yes, Master," she said.

"It is then sufficient," said the scribe to Talena.

"You are chosen," said Talena, graciously.

"Thank you, Mistress!" said the woman.

Cheers commended the decision of the Ubara.

Another of Talena's aides, or counselors, one in the garb of Cos, then spoke to Talena, shielding his mouth with his hand.

Talena nodded, and he then addressed himself to the kneeling woman.

"Rise up," said he, in a kindly fashion, "and do not address us as Master and Mistress."

She rose up.

"Do you wish, as a free female, before you join your sisters to our right, to say anything?"

"Hail, Talena!" she cried. "Glory to Talena!"

This cry was taken up by hundreds about. Then she was conducted to the side, to be manacled.

"It will be a lucky fellow who will get her," said a man.

"She is already a slave," said another.

"She will train speedily and well," said another.

"I would like to get my hands on her," said a fellow.

"She will go to some Cosian," said another.

The woman was then drawn to her feet by an auxiliary guardsmen and conducted down the ramp.

The auxiliary guardsman on the other side of the ramp, then, who was working with me, said to her, "Kneel, slut."

She knelt.

"You were rich, were you not?" he asked her.

"Yes," she said.

"Yesa€”what?" he said, angrily.