"You are pretty," he said.
"Thank you, Master," she said.
"These state sluts are all the same," said the guardsman.
"Oh?" I said.
"I liked it better when they were belled," he said.
"That was nice," I said.
"It made it easier to keep track of them, in alleys, in doorways, and such."
"Doubtless," I granted.
He looked at Lavinia, who lowered her head.
"I suspect it is lonely for them, in their chains, at night," he said.
"I suspect so," I said.
"She has duties," he said. "Do not stay here long."
"We shall be gone in a moment," I said.
He then turned about and went south on Varick.
Lavinia was trembling.
I had her rise and put the short cloak about her. Then, on a thought, as it pleased me, I had her adjust the hem of the garment she wore so that it was slave short. I then, too, adjusted the cloak so that it barely covered the raised hem of the garment. She would hold the cloak high, bunched, about her neck, to cover the collar. In this fashion it was concealed that she wore a garment resembling that of a state slave and her legs, quite contrary to the intent of the statelength garment, were extensively and delightfully bared.
"I delivered the message," said Lavinia to me.
"I know," I said.
"You saw?" she asked.
"Yes," I said.
She looked down.
"Do not be afraid," I said.
"I could not help myself," she whispered.
"I effect nothing critical," I said.
She looked at me.
"You are a female slave," I said.
"Yes, Master," she said, wonderingly. "That is it. I am a female slave. I have now become a female slave."
"Do you object?" I asked.
"No, Master," she said. "I love it!"
"You did your work well, excellently," I said. "I am very pleased."
"Thank you, Master!" she said.
I then looked out from the doorway. The guardsman was nowhere in sight. Indeed, the street was deserted.
"We will now return to the insula," I said.
"Shall I heel my master?" she asked.
"No," I said. "Precede me."
"Yes, Master," she smiled.
23
A Message is to be Delivered
"The dung of tharlarion be smeared upon the Home Stone of Ar's Station!" cried the portly fellow. "Let it be spattered with the spew of urts!" He seized up the Home Stone from the plank on which it sat, the plank resting on two inverted wastes vats, of the sort used in insulae, in the park of the Center Cylinder, within which lies the Central Cylinder. "Not even jards of stone would pick the bones of this loathsome rock!" cried the fellow. There was laughter at this by the guards about, and several other folks, too, outside the roped-off enclosure, within which was the Home Stone on its mock pedestal. Indeed, several fellows, expecting some sort of show, had hurried to stand outside the rope, to watch. The guards, too, it seemed, remembered this fellow, and egged him on with their cries. There was a line, as well, behind the fellow, awaiting its turn to enter the roped-off circle, and, one by one, express their contempt for the "Traitress of the North" as Ar's Station was now referred to on the boards.
"Surely I should kill him!" hissed Marcus to me.
"You are under no obligation to do so," I assured him, irritatedly.
"Honor deems it necessary," said Marcus, grimly, his hand going to the hilt of his sword.
"Nonsense!" I said.
"Yes!" he hissed.
"Not at all!" I insisted.
I was now alarmed. When Goreans get the idea that honor is involved they suddenly become quite difficult to deal with. Moreover, Marcus, an agile fellow, could make it over the rope and get to the vicinity of the Home Stone in something like one or two steps.
"Certainly!" he said.
"Shhh!" said a fellow, turning about. "I wish to hear this!"
I hooked my right hand in the back of Marcus' knife belt. This made it difficult for him to move forward, let alone get the elevation necessary for leaping over the rope.
"That was a nice blow," said a fellow nearby, turning to me, "the concept of a stone jard and likening the Home Stone to unfit mineral carrion."
"Yes," I agreed. "Deft." The jard is a small scavenging bird. It commonly moves in flocks.
"Even brilliant," said the fellow.
"I agree," I said. Boots Tarsk-Bit was also, quite unwitting of the fact, playing with his life.
"That is you holding the back of my knife belt, I trust," said Marcus, not looking about.
"Yes," I said, "it is I."
He did not remove his eyes from Boots and the Home Stone. His gaze was intense, fixed and fierce.
"Would you mind unhanding it?" he asked.
"Not at all," I said, "but not just now."
"Not even the slime slugs of Anango would take shelter beneath this rock!" cried Boots Tarsk-Bit, waving the stone about in his two hands.
"Well done!" cried a fellow, congratulating Boots on this sally.
I felt Marcus tugging at the belt.
"I told you not to come," I said to Marcus. "Then I told you to stay back."
"But then I would not have been cognizant of these insults!" said Marcus.
"That is true," I admitted.
"Seremides," cried Boots, "tried to throw this miserable rock into a wastes vat. Do you know what happened? The wastes vat threw it back!"
There was laughter.
Marcus made a strange noise. Hitherto I had heard such sounds emanating only from larls and sleen.
I tightened my grip on his knife belt.
"Note these wastes vats," cried Boots, indicating the two inverted vats on which the plank rested, on which the Home Stone was kept. "They are taking no chances!"
There was more laughter, even applause, at this.
"That is enough," said Marcus, grimly.
I restrained him from lunging forward.
Boots turned his head to one side and sneezed.
"At least he missed the Home Stone," said Marcus.
"Do not be too sure," I said.
"There is a line," said the officer of the guard, his eyes filled with tears, so amused had he been. "I do think another should now have his turn."
There were some cries of protest, even of dismay, about the outside of the roped-off circle.
"No, no!" called Boots to the crowd, cheerfully, pacifying it. "It is true. The general is quite right! Let others have their chance, as well. Let me not monopolize time better distributed amongst the needs of my fellow citizens of free and glorious Ar! Let not this loathsome particle of disgusting gravel, fitting Home Stone for knaves and traitors, receive the impression that it might be I alone to whom the perfidy of its city is evident!"
He then moved about, bowing graciously, to one side or another, acknowledging applause and comments, smiling, waving, touching people here and there, and then took his way from the roped-off circle.
I removed my hand from Marcus' knife belt.
Marcus stood there. Now he seemed not angry, but shattered.
"Come away," I said.
"He failed," said Marcus to me.
"Come away," I said. I literally drew Marcus away from the rope. We then walked away, across the park and thence across the Avenue of the Central Cylinder.
Another fellow was now within the circle. He was spitting, and crying out insults.
I did not, however, think he compared with Boots Tarsk-Bit, even remotely, nor, I gather, from the dissipation of the crowd, did others.
"We must go back, and try with blades," said Marcus, suddenly.
"No," I said. "We have been through that. That is not practical."
"Then he must try again, tomorrow!" said Marcus. "He must make a new attempt!"
"No," I said.
"No?" asked Marcus.
"No," I said.
; "We must have the stone!" said Marcus. "I shall not leave Ar without it!"
"Concern yourself with the matter no longer," I said.
"I should have let him use magic," moaned Marcus.
"What?" I asked.
"In recommending that this be done by mere trickery," said Marcus, "we have lost the stone!"
"Oh?" I said.
"He could have done it by magic," said Marcus, angrily. "And it was I who discouraged him from doing so!"
"Do not be too hard on yourself," I said.
"Surely you remember his recounting of his powers? Surely you remember him asking if I wished the Central Cylinder moved, if I wished the walls of Ar rebuilt overnight, if I wished a thousand tarns tamed in one afternoon!"
"Yes," I said. "I think I recall that."
"Yes," he said, miserably.
"Perhaps you should have asked for the Central Cylinder to be moved, instead," I said.
"Purloining the Home Stone would be child's play," he said, "compared to moving the Central Cylinder."
"Probably," I admitted.
"I would think it very likely," he said.
"You are probably right," I said. "But I am not an expert on such matters."
"It is all my fault," he said.
"Recall clearly now," I said. "He only asked you if you wished the Central Cylinder moved, and such things. Certainly it would have been easy enough for you to have wished for that, and such things."
"What?" he asked.
"He did not say he would move it or could move it."
"What?" asked Marcus.
"It is obviously one thing for him to find out if you wished to have the Central Cylinder moved, and quite another for him to move it."
"I do not understand," he said.
"It is not important," I said.
"It is all my fault that we do not have the stone," he said.
"How do you know we do not have it?" I asked.
"Do not jest," he said, angrily.
"I am serious," I said.
"I saw," he said. "I watched. I did not take my eyes from him. I watched with care. I watched with attention. I watched closely. I watched like a tarn. Nothing escaped me. Nothing, not even the tiniest of movements!"
"You did watch carefully," I said. I certainly had to give him that. He would have been watching more carefully than anyone there, unless perhaps myself. The others about, of course, would not have been watching as we were. They would not have known anything might be afoot. They would not have been suspecting anything, or looking for anything.
"Yes," he said.
"But perhaps you did not watch as carefully as you thought," I said.
"No," said Marcus. "I watched very carefully."
"But perhaps you were carefully watching in the wrong place at the wrong time," I said.
"I do not understand," he said.
"It is not important," I said.
"I must have the stone," said Marcus. "I shall not leave Ar without it!"
"I do not think you will have to," I said.
"I do not understand," he said.
"Perhaps we have the stone," I said.
"No," said Marcus. "Even from here I can see it, on its plank."
"You see some stone," I said.
"It is the Home Stone of Ar's Station," he said.
"Are you sure?" I asked.
"It has to be," he said. "I did not take my eyes off it the whole time."
"Perhaps you only think you did not take your eyes off it the whole time," I said.
"This is not a time for joking," he said.
"Sorry," I said.
"I am prepared to rush forth and seize the stone," he said. "Are you with me?"
"No," I said.
"Then I shall go alone," he said.
"I would not do so, if I were you," I said.
"Why not?" he asked.
"I really do not think it is necessary," I said.
"Why not?" he asked.
"I think we have it already," I said.
"What?" said Marcus.
"Just that," I said.
"Tal, gentlemen!" beamed Boots Tarsk-Bit, waddling up to us.
"I wanted to kill you," said Marcus to him.
"Any particular reason?" inquired Boots.
"For insulting the Home Stone of Ar's Station," said Marcus, grimly.
"I trust that your homicidal urges have now subsided," said Boots.
"Considerably," said Marcus. "Now I am depressed."
"You seem in good spirits," I said to Boots.
"What did you think of my performance?" he asked.
"I thought it marvelous, brilliant, unparalleled, incomparable!" I said.
"Only that?" he asked, hurt.
"Better than that, if possible," I assured him.
"Incomparably incomparable?" asked Boots.
"At least," I said.
"Yet I expect to exceed it," he said.
"You will try again, then?" asked Marcus, eagerly.
"Hold," I said. "How can you exceed the incomparably incomparable?"
"Easily," said Boots. "All that is required is that in each of one's performances one exceeds all one's previous performances, as well as those of everyone else. Thus I set new standards as I go along."
"And thus," I said, "in that fashion, it is possible for the incomparably incomparable to be outdone by the even more incomparably incomparable."
"That is it," said Boots.
"You will then try again?" asked Marcus, eagerly.
"Try what again?" asked Boots.
"To obtain the Home Stone of Ar's Station," said Marcus.
"What for?" asked Boots.
"'What for?'?" asked Marcus.
"He already has it," I said.
Boots opened his cloak, briefly.
"It is the Home Stone?" whispered Marcus, reverently.
"I certainly hope so," said Boots.
"Do you not remember what he said in his insula," I asked Marcus, "that it was nothing, that it would be no more than a sneeze?"
"Yes," said Marcus. That is a Gorean expression, incidentally, that something would be no more than a sneeze.
"A sneeze," I said. "A sneeze! Do you not grasp it, the audacity of it, the humor of it?"
"No," said Marcus.
"That is when the wily rogue did it," I chuckled, "when he sneezed. We were watching him, not his hands, and that is when the substitution was made!"
"Quite wrong," said Boots.
"Oh?" I said.
"Yes," he said. "The substitution was made quite early in the performance, when I looked up at the clouds, speculating that they would be unlikely to bother raining on such an unworthy stone. You remember, in the jokes about why they had to take it indoors and make it a Home Stone, there being nothing else to do with it, because it was causing a drought in the countryside?"
"That is not true, of course," said Marcus.
"No, of course not," said Boots. "It is really a quite nice stone."
"And it could be rained upon like any other stone," said Marcus.
"Of course," agreed Boots.
"It comes from a very well-watered area, in the Vosk Basin," said Marcus.
"I am sure of it," said Boots.
"I remember," I said. "The substitution was made so early?" I asked.
"Yes," he said.
"Not when you sneezed?" I said.
"No," he said. "It is often my practice to make the substitution early, before the audience is really ready to watch for it. They are not yet that alert. Then one acts as though the substitution, if it is a magic show, is to take place later. One may even hint at times and ways of doing it, and have the audience crying out, thinking they have caught you, but then they are mystified when you show them that things are not as they thought. Also, if the substitution is made late, people may remember more clearly what you did later than earlier, and perhaps even recall, remembering things they did not pay attention to at the time, or deduce what must have occurred. Th
us, you wish to give them a great deal to think about after the actual substitution. One does not just do the substitution and rush off. That might suggest the time at which, for example, and perhaps even the manner in which, the substitution had taken place. To be sure, this was not really a performance of that sort because no one, except you two, I suppose, was expecting anything of the sort. Indeed, it was, all things considered, little more than a brief, startling revelation of comedic brilliance, with a casual substitution thrown in. You will never know the temptation I felt to show both Home Stones afterwards, so that the audience might come to a fuller appreciation of the entire matter."
"It is good that you resisted that temptation," said Marcus.
"I think so," said Boots.
"You might have been roasted alive within the Ahn," said Marcus.
"In my thinking on the matter I did not neglect to take such considerations into my calculations," said Boots. "I permitted them to exert their influence, to add their weight, so to speak, to the scales."
"Know that we, for what it is worth, and all those of Ar's Station," said Marcus, "appreciate your brilliance!"
"Thank you," said Boots.
"We salute you!" he said.
"Thank you," said Boots.
"You did not do it when you sneezed?" I asked.
"No," he said.
"Why then did you sneeze?" I asked.
"My nose itched," he said.
"Then," said Marcus, pleased, "if the substitution was made early you were not, most of the time, reviling the actual Home Stone of Ar's Station."
"True," said Boots.
"And I almost killed you for nothing," marveled Marcus.
Boots shuddered.
"Your nose itched?" I asked.
"Yes," said Boots.
"I think," I said, "that you should prepare to leave the city as soon as possible."
"No," said Boots.
"Tonight," said Marcus.
"No," said Boots.
"Marcus is going to assist me tomorrow," I said. "But he will catch up with you, with a slave, Phoebe." I looked at Boots. "No?" I asked.
"No," said Boots. "Tomorrow night is better. If the substitution is discovered today, on the same day I was within the circle, and I left the city today, this might seem too improbable to be a mere coincidence. It seems likely that it might be conjectured I was in flight."
"He is right, of course," I said.
"Yes," said Marcus, in anguish.
Both Marcus and I, of course, now that the Home Stone was in effect in our keeping, were anxious for it to be on its way north.
Magicians of Gor Page 53