"08 - Hunters of Gor" - читать интересную книгу автора (Norman John)

"I might," said Samos, "if you could establish the pertinence of the procedure to the issues involved."

I looked down, furious.

"It is possible," said Samos, "that it is an image you love, and not a woman, that it is not a person, but a memory."

"Those who have never loved," I told him bitterly, "must not speak of what they cannot know."

Samos did not seem angry. "Perhaps," he said.

"It is your move," I told him.

I glanced across the room. A few yards away, on the tiles, in her brief silk, the two-handled, bronze paga vessel beside her, knelt the slave girl, waiting to be summoned. She was dark-haired, and beautiful. She glanced at the chained male slave, and threw back her head, and smoothed her long, dark hair over her back. In his manacles, kneeling, between his guards, he regarded her. She observed him, and smiled contemptuously, and then loftily looked away, bored. Behind his back, in the irons he wore, I sensed his fists were clenched.

"What of Talena?" asked Samos.

"She will understand," I told Samos.

"I have information," said he, "that this evening, following your departure from your house, she returned to the marshes."

I leaped to my feet.

I was staggered. The room reeled.

"What did you expect her to do?" asked Samos.

"Why did you not tell me this?" I cried.

"What would you do, if I did?" he asked. "Would you chain her to the slave ring at your couch?"

I looked at him, enraged.

"She is a proud, and noble woman," said Samos.

"I love her - " I said.

"Then go to the marshes and search her out," said Samos.

"I - I must go to the northern forests," I stammered.

"Builder to Ubara's Scribe Six," said Samos, moving a tall wooden piece toward me on the board.

I looked down. I must defend my Home Stone.

"You must choose," said Samos, "between them."

How furious I was! I strode in the torchlit hall, my robes swirling. I pounded on the stones of the wall. Could Talena not understand? Could she not understand what I must do? I had labored in Port Kar to build the house of Bosk. I stood high in this city. The curule chair at my high table was among the most honored and envied of Gor! What honor it was to be the woman of Bosk, merchant, admiral! And yet she had turned her back on this! She had displeased me! She had dared to displease me! Bosk! The marshes had nothing to offer her. Would she refuse the gold, the gems, the silks and silvers, and spilling coins, the choice of wines, the servants and slaves, the security of the house of Bosk for the lonely freedoms and silences of the salt marshes of the Vosk's vast delta?

Did she expect me to hasten after her, piteously begging her return, while Talena, once my companion, lay chained slave in the cruel green forests of the north! Her trick would not work!