I, behind her, gathered the net more closely about her, jerking her legs more closely together, wrapping the net more closely about them. A naked woman, on furs, netted, helpless, is quite lovely.
"Sleen! Sleen!" she wept. She lifted her head, as she could, from the furs, looking at the magistrates who, in their robes, with their fillets, with their wands of office, regarded her. "Sleen!" she screamed at them. They did not strike her. She did not seem to realize that she had now become a slave. "Release me!" she demanded. "Release me!"
"What was your name?" inquired Tolnar. "We shall wish it for the records."
"I am Talena!" she cried. "I am Talena, Ubara of Ar! Down on your knees before me! I am Talena, Talena! Ubara of Ar! I am your Ubara!"
"You may, of course, attempt to conceal your former identity," said Tolnar. "At this point it is immaterial."
"I am Talena!" she cried.
"Perhaps you might think to delude a poor slave," said Tolnar, "but we are free men."
"Fools!" she wept.
"What was your name?" he asked.
"My name is Talena!" she said. "I am Ubara of Ar!"
"You would have us believe that Talena of Ar is a sensuous tart in need of sexual relief, a mere chit who would condescend to keep a rendezvous so shameful as this?"
"I am Talena!" she cried, squirming in the net. "Release me! I shall scream!"
"That would be interesting, if you are Talena," said Tolnar. "You would then choose to publicize, it seems, your whereabouts. You would choose to be discovered naked and netted, before magistrates, in a room in the Metallan district, having been prepared to couch with a slave?"
She threw her head down, angrily, on the furs. "I am Talena," she said. "Release me!"
"What is more pertinent to our purposes," said Tolnar, "is your legal status, or, in this case, it seems, your former legal status."
"Release me, fools," she said.
"What was your legal status before you entered this room?" asked Tolnar. "I was, and am, a free woman!" she said.
"Of Ar?" he asked.
"Yes!" she cried, angrily.
"That is the crux of the matter," said Tolnar. He glanced to Venlisius, who nodded.
"Do you doubt that I am Talena?" she demanded of Tolnar.
"Surely you must permit me to be skeptical," he smiled.
"I am she!" she cried. Then she looked wildly at Milo. "You know me!" she wept. "You can attest to my identity! You have seen in the Central Cylinder! So, too, had that slut of a slave!"
"Stand," said Tolnar to Lavinia, who immediately complied.
"Please, Milo," begged the netted beauty, helplessly, pathetically, agonizingly, "do not lie! Tell the truth!"
He looked at her.
"Please Milo," she begged. "Tell them who I am!" How much she felt then dependent upon him, how much in his power! How different this was from her former mastery of him! How terrified she was that he might, for one reason or another, lie to the magistrates, putting her then before them as no more than a common, captured, compromised female.
"Who was she?" asked Tolnar of Milo.
"Talena, Ubara of Ar," said Milo.
"Ah!" she wept in relief.
Tolnar and Venlisius exchanged glances. They did not much relish this development.
"Release me, you sleen!" wept Talena, struggling futilely in the net.
"And you?" asked Tolnar of Lavinia, who was looking on the netted captive, indeed, a prisoner of the same cords which, months before, had held her with such similar perfection.
"Master?" asked Lavinia.
"Who was she?" said Tolnar.
"That, too, is my understanding," said Lavinia. "Talena, of Ar."
"Release me!" demanded the captive.
"What difference does it make," asked Marcus, "if, indeed, she is Talena of Ar?"
"Fool!" laughed the netted captive.
"From the legal point of view," said Tolnar, "it makes no difference, of course."
"Release me!" she said. "Do you think I am a common person? Do you think you can treat one of my importance in this fashion! I shall have Seremides have you boiled in oil!"
"I am of the second Octavii," said Tolnar. "My colleague is of the Toratti."
"Then you may be scourged and beheaded, or impaled!" she wept.
"You would have us neglect our duty?" inquired Tolnar. He was Gorean, of course. "In this case," she snapped, "you are well advised to do so."
"That is quite possibly true," said Tolnar.
"The principle here, I gather," said Marcus, "is that the Ubara is above the law."
"The law in question is a serious one," said Tolnar. "It was promulgated by Marlenus, Ubar of Ubars."
"Surely," said Venlisius to the netted woman, "you do not put yourself on a level with the great Marlenus."
"It does not matter who is greater," she said. "I am Ubara!"
"The Ubara is above the law?" inquired Marcus, who had an interest in such things.
"In a sense, yes," said Tolnar, "the sense in which she can change the law by decree."
"But she is subject to the law unless she chooses to change it?" asked Marcus. "Precisely," said Tolnar. "And that is the point here."
"Whatever law it is," cried the netted woman, "I change it! I herewith change it!"
"How can you change it?" asked Tolnar.
"I am Ubara!" she said.
"You were Ubara," he said.
She cried out in misery, in frustration, in the net.
"Interesting," said Marcus.
"Release me!" demanded the woman.
"Do you think we are fond of she who was once Talena," asked Tolnar, "of she who betrayed Ar, and collaborated with her enemies?"
"Release me, if you value your lives!" she cried. "Seremides will wish me free! So, too, will Myron! So, too, will Lurius of Had!"
"But we have taken an oath to uphold the laws of Ar," said Tolnar.
"Free me!" she said.
"You would have us compromise our honor?" said Tolnar.
"I order you to do so," she said.
Tolnar smiled.
"Why do you smile?" she asked.
"How can a slave order a free person to do anything?" he asked.
"A slave!" she cried. "How dare you!"
"You are taken into bondage," said Tolnar, "under the couching laws of Marlenus of Ar. Any free woman who couches with, or prepares to couch with, a male slave, becomes herself a slave, and the property of the male slave's master."
"I, property!" she cried.
"Yes," said Tolnar.
"Absurd!" she said.
"Not at all," he said. "It is, I assure you, all quite legal."
"Proceed then with your farce!" she cried. "I know Appanius well, and his position in this city is much dependent upon my support! Have I not freed him of numerous burdens? Have I not adjusted his taxes? Have I not spared his house, and those of other favorites, the exactions of the levies?"
"You acknowledge, then," said Tolnar, "that you are a slave?"
"Yes," she said, angrily. "I am a slave! Now, summon Appanius, immediately, that I may be promptly freed! Then you will see to what fates I shall consign you!"
"But what if Appanius wishes you as a slave?" asked Marcus.
She laughed. "I see you do not know our dear Appanius," she said. "The most he would want from a woman would be to have her do his cleaning and scrub his floors!"
"But what if that is precisely what he has in mind for you?" asked Tolnar. She turned white.
"Doubtless she would look well, performing lowly labors in chains," said Marcus. "Perhaps, unknown to you," said Tolnar, "Appanius is a patriot."
"Never!" she said. "Bring him here!"
"What if he would keep you in his house as a slave?" asked Marcus.
"Perhaps you think you could make your former identity known," said Tolnar. "That might be amusing."
"Amusing?" she asked.
"Who would believe you had been Talena, the Ubara of Ar?" asked Tolnar.
"More likely," said Venlisius, "you would be whipped, as a mad slave."