I wondered how to live.

“Within the circle od each man’s sword,” says the codes of the warrior, “therein is each man a Ubar.”

“Steel is the coinage of the warrior,” says the codes. “ With it he purchases what pleases him.”

Once I had been among the finest swordsmen on the planet Gor. Now I was a cripple.

Talena would now be in Ar.How startled, how crushed would she have been, to learn at last, incontrovertibly, that her disownment was true. She had beeged to be purchased, a slave’s act. Marlenus protecting his honor, on his sword and upon the medallion of Ar, had sworn her from him. No longer had she caste, no longer aHomeStone.The meanest peasant wench, secure in her caste right, would be more than Talena.Even a slave giorl had her collar. I knew that Marlenus would keep her sequestered in the central cylinder, that her shame not reflect upon his glory.She would be in Ar, in effect, a prisoner. She was no longer entitledeven to call its HomeStone her own. Such an act, by one such as she, was subject to public discipline. For it, she might besuspended naked, on a forty foot rope from one of the high bridges, to be lashed by tarnsmen, sweeping past her in flight.

I had watched her go.

I had not attempted to stop her.

And when Telima had fled my house, when I had determined to seek talena in the northern forests, I had, too, let her go. I smiled. A true Gorean, I knew, would have followed her, and brought her back in bracelets and collar.

I thought then of Vella, once Elizabeth Cardwell, whom I had encountered in the city of Lydius, at the mouth of the Laurius River, below the borders of the forest. I had once loved her, and had wanted to return her safe to earth. But she had not honored my will, but, that night, had saddled my tarn, great Ubar of the Skies, and fled theSardar. When the bird had returned, I, in fury, had driven it away.Then I encountered the girl in a paga tavern in Lydius; she had fallen slave.