"Put the slave to her knees!" cried Talena.

"I am a free woman!" wept Claudia. "I am not yet legally imbonded!"

"Thus," said Talena, "will you learn to kneel before free persons!"

Claudia struggled, but, in a moment, her small strength, that of a mere female, availing her nothing, by two guardsmen, was thrown to her knees.

"You look well there, Hinrabian!" said Talena.

"False Ubara!" screamed Claudia, held to her knees.

Talena made an angry sign and a guardsmen withdrew his blade from its sheath. In a moment Claudia's head was held down and forward by another guardsman.

"She is to be beheaded!" said a man.

I tensed.

Talena made another sign, and the fellow who held Claudia's hair pulled her head up, that she might see Talena.

Talena's eyes flashed with fury, and Claudia's eyes, then, were filled with terror.

"Who is your Ubara?" asked Talena.

"You are my Ubara!" cried Claudia.

"Who?" asked Talena.

"Talena," she cried. "Talena of Ar is my Ubara!"

This response on the part of Claudia seemed to me judicious, and, indeed, suitable. Talena of Ar was her Ubara.

"Do you confess your faults?" inquired Talena.

"Yes, my Ubara," sobbed Claudia.

"And do you beg forgiveness of your Ubara?" asked Talena.

"Yes, yes, my Ubara," sobbed Claudia.

"Who begs forgiveness?" asked Talena.

"I, Claudia Tentia Hinrabia, of the Hinrabians, beg forgiveness of Talena of Ar, my lawful Ubara!" she wept.

"I am prepared to be merciful," said Talena.

The guardsman with the drawn blade resheathed it. The guardsman holding Claudia's hair released it, angrily, pushing her head down. The other two guardsmen, one holding each arm, retained their merciless grip on the Hinrabian. "Talena, Ubara of Ar," announced a scribe, "will now pronounce judgment on the traitress, Claudia Tentia Hinrabia."

"Enemy of Ar, enemy of the people of Ar, enemy of the Home Stone of Ar, Claudia Tentia Hinrabia," said Talena,you are to be imbonded, and before nightfall." Claudia's body shook with sobs.

"Send her to the chain," said Talena.

Claudia was pulled up to the side and rudely manacled. She, on her knees, looked back at Talena.

"You look well in the chains of men," said Talena.

"You, too, Talena of Ar, my Ubara," wept the Hinrabian, "would doubtless look well in the chains of men!"

Men gasped, in fury.

"Take her away," said Talena.

"Beware the chains of men!" cried the Hinrabian. Then she was pulled down the ramp and, men jeering her and striking at her, buffeting and bruising her, was thrown to her knees before me, to be added to the chain.

"As she is poor stuff," said Talena, loudly, "let a silver tarsk be added to the reparations, to compensate, if it can, for her inadequacies of face and figure." There was much laughter.

The Hinrabian put down her head, and I took her wrist chain and, in a moment, with the joining ring, had attached her to the coffle chain.

She looked up at me, tears in her eyes. She gasped. My eyes warned her to silence. Doubtless she remembered me from years before. She turned back then, and looked toward the platform. She looked at me then, again, woneringly. "Stand, slut of Ar," said the auxiliary guardsman opposite me. "Move to the first position."

"Yes, Master," she said, obeying.

"No, my dear," Talena was saying to another woman on the platform. "You are too young."

That woman was conducted to the rear of the platform. Earlier in the morning, it might be noted, Talena had consigned woman as young, or younger than that one, to the chain.

"No, not she," said Talena, as the next woman was presented. "We must keep some beauty in Ar," she explained.

The woman looked at her, gratefully, and quickly pulled the proferred robe again about herself, and hurried from the platform.

Men expressed approval of the decision of their Ubara.

"Master," whispered Claudia to me, standing about a yard behind me, and to my right.

I went to stand beside her. "Yes," I said, She looked up at me, her cheeks stained with tears. "Am I beautiful?" she asked, frightened.

"Yes," I said.

"Thank you, Master," she said.

"Years ago," I said, "even in your time of power and cruelty, you were beautiful."

"Such things are behind me now," she said.

"Yes," I said.

She smiled.

"Thank you, Master," she said.

"Never doubt your beauty," I said.

"Yes, Master," she said.

"You are still free," I said. "You need not address me as Master."

"Surely," she said, "it would be well for me to accustom myself, once again, to the utterance of such appropriate deferences."

"True," I said.

"Not she, either," said Talena.

"How merciful is Talena," marveled a man.

"Cornelia, Lady of Ar," said the scribe.

"Do not bare me to men, I beg you," said the woman to Talena, clutching the robe about her.

Talena consulted a list held by a scribe near her. It was not one of the copies of the master list, so to speak, which contained the full list of names. "Please," begged the woman.

Talena looked up from the list. "Strip her," she said.

The woman cried out with anguish as the single garment was removed from her. She put down her head. She blushed, to totally, from the roots of her hair to her toes.

I did not think the woman would be chosen. Like many free women, she had not taken care of her figure. Perhaps that was why she had not wished to be bared before men. to be sure, if she were imbonded it was likely that masters would remedy her oversights in this area, enforcing upon her exact, even merciless, regimens of diet and exercise. They would see that she was soon brought into prime condition, both with respect to physical health and sexual responsiveness. "It seems," said Talena of the woman, "that two years ago, in the great theater, you were overheard making a remark concerning your future Ubara, one in which you expressed disapproval of her restoration to citizenship." The woman regarded her, aghast.

"You are chosen," said Talena.

The woman was dragged to the side, to be knelt and manacled. In a moment or so I had added her to the chain.

"No," said Talena, "not that one, dismissing the next woman.

I looked after the woman who had just been added to the chain, who had now been ordered to her feet, and moved to the first scratch mark on the tiles. In three or four months, if not sooner, I suspected she would have become a hot, obedient, excitingly curved slave.

"No," said Talena, "not this one either."

Talena was then ready to dismiss another woman but something was called to her attention from the list held by the representative of the High Council, and that woman, too, was consigned to the chain. I gathered that she, or perhaps some relative of hers, had offended some member of the current council. Another woman, similarly, later, whom Talena seemed prepared to dismiss, she reconsidered and selected, apparently at the request or suggestion of one of the Cosians on the dais. As he was not likely to be a party to the internal intrigues in Ar, and such, I supposed it was merely that the woman had appealed to him. Perhaps he regarded her as the sort whom Cosians would enjoy having serve their banquets, moving among the tables, bearing platters of viands, or pouring wine, or such, or perhaps merely lying on their bellies or backs beside their small tables at such banquets, ready, too, to serve.

"No," said Talena, apropos of the next female, "not she."

The free, native population of Ar, though there are no certain figures on the matter even in the best of times, and, given the flight of many from the city, conjectures have become even more hazardous, is commonly estimated at between two and three million people. Itinerants, resident aliens and such would add, say, another quarter million to these figures. It is, at any rate, clearly the most populous city of known Gor, exceeding even Turia, in the southern hemisphere. Slaves, incidentally, are not counted in population statistics, any more than sleen, verr, tarsks and such. There were perhaps a quarter million slaves in Ar, the great majority of which were female.