“Come with my men and me to our camp, north of Laura,” he said. “Your are welcome there.” “It does not count, I trust,” I asked, “being your camp, as part of the realm of Ar?” Marlenus laughed. “No!” he said. “Ar is where the Home Stone of Ar lies!” He chuckled. “You will be a welcome guest. I promise not to torture and impale you, for breaking the banishment.” “You are most generous,” I said.
“Do not be bitter,” he smiled.
“Very well,” I said.
I looked about. I saw Mira. She had now rearmed herself. At her belt was her sleen knife. In her hand was her light spear.
“Mira was clever.” I said. “She claimed that you had withdrawn your forces to Ar, even that you had disowned Talena. The forged document to that effect was a superb subterfuge.” Marlenus’ eyes were suddenly hard.
“Forgive me,” said I, “Ubar.”
“The document,” said Marlenus, “was not forged. Talena, by the permission of Verna, and by way of Mira, Verna’s messenger, with whom I dealt, sued for her purchase, such not being the act of a free woman.” “Then the disownment.” I said, “ is true?” “It is true, and it is valid,” said Marlenus. “Now let us not speak of it. I have been much shamed. I have done what was needful, as a warrior and a father, and a Ubar.” “But what of Talena?” I said.
“Who,” asked Marlenus, “is this person of whom you speak?”
I was silent.
Then Marlenus turned to Verna. “It is my understanding,” he said, “that you hold a girl, once known to me, slave.” Verna was silent.
“It is my intention to free her,” said Marlenus. “She will then be taken to Ar, and may have quarters in the palace,” said Marlenus.
“You will sequester her?” I asked him.
“She will have an adequate pension, and quarters in the palace,” said Marlenus. Verna looked up. “She is near an exchange point,” said Verna. “She is being held there.” Marlenus nodded. “Very well,” he said.
Verna looked up at him. “Are you always victorious, Marlenus of Ar?” she asked. Marlenus turned away from her, and went to examine the line of bound girls, Verna’s band. They stood, their hands bound behind their backs, fastened together by the long length of binding fiber, knotted about the right ankle of each. He examined them carefully, walking about the entire line, then girl by girl, sometimes pushing up her chin with his thumb.
“Beauties,” he said.
The girls regarded him, frightened.
He turned to face his men. “How many of you carry a slave collar with you?” he asked.
There was much laughter.
“My pretties,” said Marlenus, addressing the line of secured woman, “earlier I thought you were much aroused.” They looked at one another, apprehensively.
“It would be cruel,” said he, ”to deny you your pleasures.”
They regarded him with horror.
“Put them in the Ubar’s collar,” he said.
The men rushed forward, seizing the captives. They forced them back to the grass. They fastened steel collars on their throats.
Marlenus returned to where Verna lay bound. I could hear the girls crying out, whimpering.
“Have you no collar for me, Ubar?” asked Verna.
“Yes,” he said, “in my camp. I have a collar for you, my pretty.”
Verna looked at him in fury. He had addressed her as a woman.
She pulled helplessly at the binding fiber.
“I will not make the same mistakes with you this time,” he said, “that I did last time.” She looked up at him, miserable.
“There are no traitors now among my men, no spies from Treve. Each of them is a known man, a sword companion, one of glorious Ar.” She turned her head away.
“Further,” he said, “last time I intended to return you to Ar in honor, in a retinue, in a stout cage, fastened in the manacles of a man.” “And now?” she asked coldly.
“I had forgotten” he said, “ that you were only a woman.”
She stiffened.
“You had best chain me heavily, Ubar,” she warned Marlenus.
“Slave bracelets, or a sirik, will be sufficient to hold you,” said Marlenus. She struggled in the thongs.
“Too,” he said, “you will not need this gold.” He indicated the rude ornaments which bedecked her beauty, at the throat, on her arms, and her ankle. “These things will be removed from you,” he said.
“You will permit me at least,” she said,the skins of forest panthers.” “You will wear slave silk,” he said.
“No!” she cried. “No!” She reared up, fighting the thongs.
“And you will be returned to Ar,” said Marlenus, “not in a retinue, but on tarnback, like any other captive girl.” She closed her eyes.
Marlenus, patient as a hunter, waited until she again regarded him. “In my camp,” he said, “you will wear slave rouge.” She looked at him with horror.
“And,” said Marlenus, “I will have your ears pierced.”
She turned her head to one side, and wept.
“You weep,” said Marlenus, “like a woman.”
She cried out in agony, and turned her head to one side.
Marlenus sat down, cross-legged, by Verna. He looked on her, intently. He studied her. He gave her great attention. She turned her head to one side, her wrists secured in many turns of binding fiber, her fists clenched. I knew that on Earth many men did not even know their wives. They did not truly look upon them. Never, truly, had they seen them. But a Gorean master will know every inch, and care for every inch, of one of his slave girls. He will know every hair, every sweet blemish of her. In a way she is nothing to him, for she is only slave. But in another way she is very important to him. She is one of his women. He will know her. He will want to know her completely, every inch of her body, every inch of her mind. Nothing less will satisfy him. She is his property. He will choose to know his property thoroughly.
For a long time Marlenus studied the expressions on Verna’s face. I had thought that her face was expressionless, but, as I, too, studied it, looking upon it with great attention and care. I saw that it was marvelous and changing and subtle. And I understood then that our simple words for emotions, such as pride, and hate, and fear, are gross and inadequate. The sharpened stone clutched in the hand of a shambling beast is a delicate instrument compared to the clumsy noises, these piteous vocabularies, with which we, unwary men, dare to speak of realities. I know of no language in which the truth may be spoken. The truth can be seen, and felt, and known, but I do not think it may be spoken. Each of us learns it, but none of us, I think, can tell another what it is.
Marlenus looked up at me.
He nodded with his head toward the line of girls, pressed back on the grass, steel at their throats, struggling bound in the arms of captors.
“You may have any of them, if you wish,” said Marlenus.
“No, Ubar,” I told him.
After an Ahn Marlenus said. “We shall return to Verna’s camp. We shall spend the night there. In the morning we shall return to my camp, north of Laura.” He rose to his feet.
“Present the slaves,” said Marlenus, “to their leader.”
One by one, the girls, their wrists still bound behind their back, their right ankles still in coffle, were dragged before Verna.
Some struggled. Few held up their heads.
“Verna!” wept one. “Verna!”
Verna did not speak to her.
Then the girls, in coffle, were led away into the darkness, herded by the butts of spears. Some wept.
“At your camp,” Marlenus informed Verna, “we will put them in proper chains.” Marlenus then released Verna’s wrists, and her right ankle. She was still bound to a stake by the left ankle.
“Stand,” he said.
She did so.
“Bracelets,” he said.
She looked at him, with hatred.
“Bracelets,” he snapped.
She put her head in the air and placed her hands behind her back.
Marlenus locked bracelets on her. They were slave bracelets.
“Have you no heavier chains?” she asked.
“Free yourself,” said Marlenus.