I thought of a slave. Tonight would not be a comfortable night for her, or, I supposed, the better part of tomorrow. I had already arranged that a sealed message, conveyed by courier, would reach the Central Cylinder tomorrow, after the tenth Ahn. I wondered if she had been yet missed. Quite possibly. If not now, surely by morning, when her women would arrive for her robing, her bathing, the breaking of her fast, her morning audiences. How frantic would then be the Central Cylinder. Well could I imagine Seremides storming about, striking subordinates, denouncing his staff, threatening his officers, and all Ar, overturning furniture, tearing down hangings, picking up the pen, putting it down again, spilling ink, shouting orders, rescinding them, issuing them again, demanding that word not be sent to the camp of Myron, not yet, not yet. How eagerly they would seize on any clue. How swiftly, how desperately, would the simple message be received, specifying her location. They would rush there and find she whom they took to be their Ubara chained in place, as though she might now be no more than someone's mere slave girl. How they would rejoice upon her recovery, and would hasten to cover her, and send for one of the metal workers, to relieve her of her effective, shameful bonds. They would then convey her back to the Central Cylinder, secretly, that none in Ar might know what had occurred. She would then, within an Ahn or two, be restored to the role of the Ubara, and perhaps even be seated again upon the throne. I wondered if she would be uneasy, or perhaps even terrified, realizing the folly in which she was now enmeshed, daring to ascend the dais, not to lie on its steps as a half naked slave, collared, at a Ubar's feet, an item of display, but to sit upon the throne itself. Surely she must be aware of the presumption of this act, of the insolence, and fearful peril, of it. One could scarcely dare conjecture the punishments which might be attendant upon it, she only a slave. Well must she be concerned to keep her bondage secret. Yet she must know that some in Ar would know that secret, that some would even have access to the papers involved in its proof.
I heard someone outside down in the street, doubtless a guardsman, cry, "Halt! Halt!" There was then the sound of running feet. Guardsmen in the Metallan district, as now in Ar, generally, went in pairs. Some fellows, I gathered, had been spotted, violating the curfew.
No, the slave would not spend a comfortable night, lying on the flat flooring stones, naked, her wrists chained closely to her ankles, kept in place by a neck chain, fastened to a floor ring. It would be something of a change for her, from the comforts, and cushions, of the Ubara's couch. But I thought this might be good for her. Long ago, when she had been the slave of Rask of Treve, she had been, I gathered, treated as something rather special, kept less as a slave than as a free woman kept, for his amusement, in the shame of slave garb. There, I gathered, she had been kept more as a prize, or trophy, than a slave. She there, though certainly technically in bondage, had, it seems, been pampered. That did not displease me. Let this night, however, teach her what can be the lot of a more common girl, such as she was.
I looked up at the ceiling.
I did not think she would forget this first night in my keeping.
I smiled to myself.
Let her sit again upon the throne of Ar. Beneath the robes of the Ubara, in all their beauty, complexity and ornateness, she would be no more than my naked slave.
I heard a sound outside, on the stairs.
I thought that perhaps she might, in time, tend to forget that she was now a slave and come again, on the whole, to think of herself as Ubara of Ar. On the other hand, surely, from time to time, perhaps in an uneasy or frightening moment, she would recollect that she was my slave. Sometimes at night, I did not doubt, she would start at some small noise, and lie there in the darkness, wondering if she were alone. Or perhaps I had come for my slave, with gag and bonds, to claim her.
I considered Ar, and its condition. I thought of the delta of the Vosk, and the disaster which had occurred there, and of the veterans returned from the delta. How angry I was, even though I was not of Ar, that they had, for all their loyalty and sacrifice, for all their service, courage and devotion, received little but scorn and neglect from their compatriots, a scorn and neglect engineered by factions hoping to profit from the perversities of such politics, using them to further their own ends, among these ends being to put Ar and those of Ar into a condition of even greater weakness and confusion, to undermine their will and sap their pride, to put Ar and those of Ar even more at the mercy of their enemies. And interestingly, it seemed that many of Ar, particularly the young, the less experienced, the more gullible, the more innocent, and, too, perhaps, the most fearful of hardship, responsibility and danger, and their attendant risks, those accustomed to such things, those who had always received and never given, those who had never sacrificed anything, were among those most ready to lap up the sops of Cos, clinging to excuses for their cowardice, indeed, commending their lack of courage as a new virtue, a new, and improved, convenient courage. Yet how unfair was this to the perceptive young, piercing the propaganda, scorning the public boards, recognizing without being told what was being done to them and their city, smarting with shame, burning with indignation, recollective of Ar's glory, the young in whom flowed the blood of their fathers, and the hope of the city's future. Perhaps there was not, after all, young and old, but rather those who were ready to work and serve, and those who were not, those who preferred to profit from the work and service of others, risking nothing, contributing nothing. But even so, how odd, I thought, that those who did not wade in the delta, facing the arrows of rencers, the spears of Cos, the teeth of tharlarion, should profess their superiority over those who did, indeed, by their work and service sheltering and protecting those who, obedient to the subtleties of Cos, heaped ridicule and abuse upon them. Why did such men return to such as Ar, one so unworthy of them? Because it was there that was their Home Stone. But the veterans now, within Ar, were a force. Indeed, Cos must now try anew to demean them, to undermine their influence, to once more turn people against them. Perhaps it could be done. Perhaps it was only necessary to cloak the ends of Cos in moral rhetorics. That had worked in the past. Perhaps it would work in the future. Those who control the public boards, it is said, control the city. But I was not sure of this. Goreans are not stupid. It is difficult to fool them more than once.
They tend to remember. To be sure, Cos could certainly count on those who regarded their best interests as being served by Cosian rule, and many of these were highly placed in the city, even in the Central Cylinder. Too, the conditionings of Cos, verbal, visual and otherwise, surely would not be entirely ineffective. Such programs produce their puppets, legions of creatures convinced of values they have never reflected on, or examined in detail. There would always be the dupes, of one sort or another, and the opportunists, and the cowards, with their rationalizations. But, too, I speculated, there would be those of Ar to whom the Home Stone was a Home Stone, and not a mere rock, not a piece of meaningless earth. And so I thought of Ar under the yoke of Cos, and of hope, and pride, and of the Delta Brigade. I thought, too, of the mercenary might that held Ar oppressed. I though of Seremides, whom I had known as long ago as the time of Cernus. I had spoken boldly to the slave in the room, but who knew what the future held. I wondered, too, of Marlenus of Ar, doubtless slain in the Voltai range, in his punitive raid against Treve, doubtless his bones lay now in some remote canyon in the Voltai, picked by jards. Else what force, what might of man or nature, could have kept him from the walls of Ar?