My emotions were much mixed as I made my way through the tall forest toward the banks of the Laurius.

I had left my men at the camp of Marlenus, Arn, his outlaws, and the five men from the Tesephone. I had wished to be alone on this journey. They would follow me, in two days.

I carried my weapons, even the great bow, recovered from Verna’s camp, days before.

I had come to the forest rich in my prides and my plans. I would, from under the nose of Marlenus, preferably by trade, snatch Talena, thus evening the score for his banishment of me from Ar, thus regaining her, thus winning glory, thus setting my ladder against the political heights of the planet Gor, for, with such a woman at my side, there were few doors and cylinders that would be locked against me, and I, only a merchant of Port Kar, might have ascended unimpeded the stairs of influence and power. At a stroke, companionship with such a woman, coupled with my position and riches in Port Kar, would have made me one of the most significant and prominent men of Gor.

I smiled.

Men of lowly origins and great ambition and talent, I knew, had often used alliances with high-born women to further the fortunes of their designs. Such alliances, portions of their planning, lifted them to strata where their talents and energies might have full play, strata otherwise closed to them by dominant, controlling groups and families, jealous of and protective of their own interests. The dominant and effective families thus take into themselves newcomers of energy and intelligence, who, in exchange for position and opportunity, when they themselves are allied with such families, help keep the families high and dominant in the society. Human structures are group structures, and closed groups, with senses of their own best interest, yet open enough and intelligent enough to accept a certain amount, carefully selected, of new and driving blood, regulate society. Many people are unaware of such groups, for they are seldom identifiable save through lines of social relation and connection. The first families of a city usually constitute one or more of such groups, sometimes competitive groups. When a city falls, the daughters of such families are most avidly sought by the conquerors as slaves. Their first duty, naked and collared, is to serve the conquerors at their victory feast. Subsequently, they are commonly awarded to high officers or men who have especially distinguished themselves in the taking of the city, perhaps an individual who has led a sortie which successfully stormed a gate, or the first man upon the enemy’s walls, or one who has captured a member of the city’s council. In the latter case, if the council member has a daughter, it is common to give her to the man who has captured her father.

I was, of course, only of the merchants.

I laughed.

With the daughter of a Ubar as a consort there would be few who would dare to recall that I was not of high caste. And, surely, with such a woman at my side, many cities, vying for my good will, would beg me to accept investiture as a warrior, a high caste, in their rolls.

Companionship with the daughter of Marlenus, Ubar of Ubars, would have brought me much, I needed much.

I was already a rich and powerful man, but my political power did not extend beyond Port Kar. And in Port Kar, I recalled my political power, strictly, extended no further than my vote in the Council of Captains. I was not even first in the council. That post was held by Samos.

In the past years, in Port Kar, my ambitions had enlarged. Economic power and political power are like the left and the right foot. My ventures in merchantry had secured me wealth. My companionship with Talena, opening up a thousand avenues and alliances, conjoined with my riches, would have made me easily among the most splendid and powerful men on Gor.

Who knew how high might have been raised the chair of Bosk?

I laughed bitterly. How foolishly I had brought my prides and my plans to the northern forests.

I had little to show for my efforts. I would be a laughing stock.

I and my men had fallen to panther girls. We had been outwitted, and tricked. Though we were men, we had fallen to women. Our heads, in token of our humiliation, had been shaved by our captors. Each of us, including the mighty Bosk, wore the two-and-one-half inch swath on our heads, running from our foreheads to the back of our necks, making it clear to all who it was who had taken us in the forests.

I, and my men, would have been raped and sold, summarily, had we not been rescued by the great Marlenus, Ubar of Ubars.

He had succeeded, casually, where we had failed. It was he, not Bosk, to whom Verna and her girls had fallen. It was he, not Bosk, who would sell them, or do with them as he pleased.

And he had even extended to me and my men the courtesy of his camp, magnanimously.

I shook my head. Marlenus was indeed a Ubar, a Ubar of Ubars.

Verna, had been a rude, proud, strong, defiant, ill-tempered, magnificent outlaw woman, hating men. Then she had fallen to Marlenus of Ar, who would not accept her as such. He had played a savage game, crushing her, turning her into a slave girl. Verna was not property, to be bid upon, and bought and sold by any free man. But, too, paradoxically perhaps, she was joyful in the discovery of herself, her sex and her body. It mattered not that the discovery had been forced upon her. Too long had she fought and denied her womanhood. As a slave, she would no longer be permitted to do so. She had been a proud outlaw woman, fierce, resenting men, hostile toward them. Marlenus had touched her. She was feminine, utterly feminine, unlocked, opened, a conquered, helpless, loving slave.

I asked myself, as Verna had twice before, Marlenus, are you always victorious? Now I returned to the Tesephone, without Talena, with nothing.

Marlenus, as was his right, she being an ex-citizen of Ar, would free her, and return her, in simple robes of concealment, in disgrace, to her former city. She had been disowned.

She was now nothing.

She had only her beauty, and that was branded.

Companionship with such a person, for anyone of position or power, was unthinkable. It would result in the equivalent of ostracism. With her as companion one could be only rich. Companionship with such a person, an ex-slave, one without caste, one without family and position, would be, politically and socially, a gross and incomparable mistake.

I wondered of the daughters of Ubars. It was unfortunate that the great Ubar, Marlenus, had no such daughter. Had he one, she might have been ideal. Lurius of Jad, Ubar of the island of Cos, was said, by a long-dissolved companionship, to have a daughter. Phanius Turmus, of Turia, was said to have two daughters. They had once been enslaved by Tuchuks, but they were now free. They had been returned, though still wearing the chains of slaves, as a gesture of good will, by Kamchak, Ubar San of the Wagon Peoples. Turia was called the Ar of the south.

Cos and Port Kar, of course, are enemies, but, if the Companion Price offered Lurius were sufficient, I would not expect him to hesitate in giving me the girl. The alliance, of course, would be understood, on all sides, as not altering the political conditions obtaining between the cities. It was up to Lurius to dispose of his daughter as he saw fit. She might not desire to come to Port Kar, but the feelings of the girl are not considered in such matters. Some high-born women are less free than the most abject of slave girls.

Clark of Thentis had a daughter, but he was not a Ubar. He was not even of high caste. He, too, was of the merchants. Indeed, there were many important merchants who had daughters, for example, the first merchant of Teletus and the first merchant of Asperiche. Indeed, the two latter individuals had already, in the past year, approached me with the prospect of a companionship with their daughters, but I had declined to discuss the matter.