Tal Goreans,
Greetings visitors,

Welcome once again to the Booknotes column.

Tiffany, now one of the Feast Slaves at the business of that name, has learned to her interest and consternation that Hassan the Slave Hunter is in Ar, pursuing Sheila the fugitive Tatrix of Corcyrus, which was one of Tiffany?s previous identities. On sober reflection she concludes that even sleen could not catch her in a place the size of Ar, where she presently is; not with so many conflicting scents crossing and re-crossing her trail. But it remains to be seen whether she is right or not. Let us turn once more to Kajira of Gor and find out how things turn out.

Chapter Thirty

It is some little time later in Ar, and Tiffany is surprised to learn that Hassan and his sleen are still about the place; they were supposed to have left the city a week ago. She also notices that the streets look dirty, as though they have not had their regular cleaning, and she establishes after making some enquiries that such is indeed the case, and that this order was handed down from high authority.

Seeing the sleen approaching, Tiffany makes herself scarce; but she sees them again and again over the ensuing hour or so, and becomes increasingly desperate. We learn that there are she-urts, vagrant free women, in Ar as there are in Port Kar, but she dare not consider trying to hide among them as they will certainly despise and denounce her. This is not a good time for her to be noticed by a city youth who decides he wants some free wench sport with a slave who has no choice but to tarry with him as long as he feels inclined, but such is exactly what happens.

Soon there is a cry of ?There she is!? and the sleen are loosed. Tiffany runs, but is soon cornered and can only kneel, hiding her face so that she need not see the oncoming sleen. But what is this? They ignore her and lead the hue and cry to a house where a break-in is swiftly effected, and a little later a woman is captured who, Tiffany sees, could well have been her twin. Hassan promptly beats, bracelets and rapes her, before carrying her off.

Tiffany feels a pang of pity for this woman, whom she glimpsed once or twice in the company of Ligurious in Corcyrus, for it is sure that a grisly death awaits her; but at least Tiffany herself seems to be in the clear, at last. Scarcely is the thought in her head, though, when she finds herself apprehended by Miles of Argentum, who has previously seen her on Corcyrus?s very throne; and he pays her very close heed. Drusus Rencius is on hand and Miles discusses Tiffany?s identity with him; but Drusus opines that this is only a slave and not Sheila, Tatrix of Corcyrus.

Miles lets her go for now, but Tiffany knows that she will be easy to find if he wants her, as her collar bears the inscription of the business concern that owns her.

Chapter Thirty-One

Soon Tiffany is in Argentum, as the Feast Slaves have been hired by Miles, who plays a little dressing-up game with her, getting her to pretend that she is Sheila, Tatrix of Corcyrus. She performs for him as he orders, and he proves no slouch at bringing out the inner slave in a woman such as her ? not that we would have expected any less of him. She still believes and hopes that he does not suppose her to be the real Sheila, who has been hunted down at no small expense by Hassan and his sleen, but she learns that he has arranged to buy her from Feast Slaves, and it turns out that he has by no means ruled her out as Sheila. He continues to call her by that name, and ? which is worse ? announces that she is to be handed over to the High Council of Argentum, and Claudius, its Ubar.

Chapter Thirty-Two

Tiffany finds herself ordered to the Throne Room in Argentum on the orders of a free man. There she observes a golden sack swinging from the ceiling, heavy with some unknown contents. More importantly, there is a man in the chamber, and this is nobody but Ligurious, erstwhile First Minister of Corcyrus. He self-satisfiedly informs her of his escape from Ar on the occasion of Lady Sheila?s capture, and that he is in Argentum on licence having volunteered to turn State?s Evidence in the identification of Lady Sheila.

Ligurious proceeds to lower the golden sack to the ground and opens it, finding the real Lady Sheila there, and is horrified to learn that this woman has been branded and collared as a slave. (We saw him many chapters ago almost visibly panting with barely-suppressed lust for her, the poor thing.) He speedily puts his plan into action, dressing Tiffany in Lady Sheila?s clothing and returning her to the bag in the other?s stead.

A little later, though, Tiffany is lowered to the floor and released and the true Sheila replaced therein. This time the agent is Drusus Rencius, who has been keeping an eye on Ligurious and also guesses that there is some skulduggery afoot intended to keep Hassan from testifying that night. On the other hand, he trusts Hassan?s ability to look after himself. He takes Tiffany back to the slave quarters and announces grimly that the night?s council will establish who is the true Tatrix of Corcyrus.

Chapter Thirty-Three

At the council the identification process is soon under way. Ligurious suffers an early reverse when he confidently announces that the woman he has just released from the golden sack is indeed the Tatrix (which is true, but which he intended to be false). However, he is a slippery customer with a smooth, plausible tongue and he gradually builds the case against Tiffany. Drusus Rencius speaks up for her to the best of his ability, but circumstances do not favour him. Ligurious successfully sells the line that, though apparently the devoted First Minister of Corcyrus?s Tatrix, he was actually the leader of the secret resistance movement against her, and as for the identification effected by the sleen, that was only as good as the trail they were given to follow. He argues that the garments they were given were not those of the Tatrix, and produces more that he claims were such, certified under the seal of Corcyrus and the signature of her new Administrator, Menicius.

But at this juncture Ligurious overreaches himself ? or, we may say, reaches the doom that has been waiting for him all along. Present in the room, but hooded and anonymous until now, is that same Menicius, of the Metal Workers, Corcyrus?s new Administrator and, until recently, the leader of that same resistance movement that Ligurious claimed to lead. At Menicius?s suggestion, and the news that Ligurious?s confederate in Corcyrus has been caught and confessed all, Ligurious is put in chains.

It turns out that Menicius knows something, and guesses more, of the ongoing cold war between the Priest-Kings and the Kurii. At this point, Sheila, identified by yet another bundle of ? surprisingly ? Earth clothing carrying her scent, confesses all. She has indeed been an agent of Kurii on Gor; all that Ligurious did, he did at her bidding, wound around her little finger by his love for her; the war on Argentum was solely the result of her greed and it was only Cos?s inaction and Ar?s loyalty to her ally that saw the war end in defeat. Aware of the risks she was running, she took steps to procure a double in case she should need someone to be executed in her stead.

Ligurious keeps his lip buttoned throughout all this, and he may not be put to the question unless Claudius is willing to compromise Argentum?s honour, since he has given Ligurious a safe conduct. Although he will be detained for a while pending further enquiries, his liberty is guaranteed, and Claudius smilingly rejects the indignant suggestion that the enquiries should be postponed for a thousand years. Indeed, Claudius admits to something approaching pity ? Gor?s forbidden emotion ? for Ligurious, a strong man exploited against his will by his one soft spot.

As for Sheila, she is ready to be handed over for justice and expects no better. She is only grateful to have had a short time as Hassan?s slave, which has taught her an aspect of her own nature that she had never suspected. But wily Hassan took care to make her a slave before ever she was brought to court, and this means that she is no longer legally the free woman who committed those crimes. As a slave, she is Hassan?s to keep if he does not want the fifteen hundred gold pieces (ninety to a hundred pounds in weight, and so clearly an immense sum); and he laughingly refuses the money, preferring his slave.

They make their exit, and Tiffany is spoken to by Menicius. She realizes that it was he who freed her from the camp of Miles of Argentum after the fall of Corcyrus; it was the same man whom Tiffany once saw denouncing her when she was abroad in Corcyrus in her assumed station of Tatrix, and to whom she was merciful; a random deed that redounded much to her benefit. Her assistant at the time was none other than Drusus Rencius, acting solely on the conviction that Tiffany was innocent of the crimes of the Tatrix; at which Tiffany realizes that Drusus loves her. But she is now the property of Miles of Argentum.

Chapter Thirty-Four

Tiffany and Sheila both are assigned to Ligurious for a night, which is generosity itself on the part of Hassan to whom Sheila is dearer than her own weight in gold. This is certainly nice for Ligurious, and also gives him the opportunity to relate to Sheila as master to slave instead of trembling suitor to inaccessible Tatrix and no doubt rids him of the gremlins that beset him. But as to his future, Ligurious does not know. He certainly has no place in Corcyrus now, where he would find Menicius no friend at all, and that leaves him without Home Stone and so presumably condemned to the life of an outlaw. So if it seems as though he has got off lightly through a blame-the-woman mentality, he has certainly not got off scot free.

Chapter Thirty-Five

Chapter Thirty-Six

It is several days later and most of the participants in the drama have gone their separate ways. The other Feast Slaves have been returned to Ar, except that Tiffany?s replacement, Emily, has been collected by their handsome master Aemilianus himself, and there seems to be a lot of mutual affection going on there. Ligurious has gone his ways, and Hassan and Sheila will go first to Port Kar for an interview with Samos, a human agent of Priest-Kings (as we know very well) and then, in the likely event that Sheila survives the interrogation, back to the Tahari city of Kasra.

Tiffany for her part finds herself in the household of Drusus Rencius. There takes place some of the kind of to-ing and fro-ing that we have seen before, notably in the closing chapters of Guardsman of Gor, in which the participants find it necessary to beat many times about the bush of whether their mutual love is going to interfere with the master/slave relationship or whether, rather, it is going to enhance it ? and the Gor-wise reader will certainly have an inkling as to which way the smart money is laid; and how long Drusus Rencius is going to bang on about the torments that Tiffany, while presumed to be a Tatrix, caused him to suffer when the difference in their ranks and stations would not allow him to fling her to his feet and put her to the use which both of them were frantically panting for. In due course, and after only the most usual of whippings and shoutings, they get down to brass tacks, and it is plain to see that Drusus, who paid the grossly-over-the-odds price of fifty silver tarsks for Tiffany (or ?Lita? as he now, and for the last time, renames her), will have no cause to think he has made a bad bargain.

Chapter Thirty-Seven

At this happy juncture Lita and Drusus both pass out of the affairs of the war of the worlds, and are left to get on with their private master-and-slave business; which Lita must go and attend to without further delay, leaving her no further time for her story. And that summary of the final chapter is two words longer than the chapter itself.

So we conclude the story of Tiffany Collins, by all the signs as fully contented with her lot as each of the other slave girls we have seen brought to Gor; and we look forward to renewing our acquaintance with Tarl Cabot, who has been taking a break. Knowing him, though, it will not be long before he is living in interesting times again; and the reader is invited to join me next month when we will open the covers of the twentieth of the Chronicles of Counter-Earth, Players of Gor.

I wish you well,

Socrates