Free Explorers of Gor by John Norman

tide, however, I did not think he would be pleased.
    There seemed to be something going on now at the post of the wharf praetor, so I returned to that area.
    “It is she!” said the fellow in the torn tunic with the blood behind his ear, pointing at the small, dark-haired girl. She stood before the high desk of the praetor, her wrists tied be-hind her back. Beside her, his hands, too, bound behind him, stood the fellow who had been her accomplice. They were fastened together by the neck, by a guardsman’s neck strap. The girl, interestingly, was stripped, the brief, brown tunic having been taken from her. I had not removed it. I had only thrust it up, over her hips. It did not seem likely to me that the guardsman, either, would have removed it, as she was, I presumed, a free woman. Yet it was gone, and she was naked.
    “We found them both trussed like vulos,” laughed a guardsman.
    “Who could do such a thing?” asked a man.
    “It was not guardsmen,” said a guardsman. “We would have brought them in.”
    “It seems they picked the wrong fellow to waylay,” said a man.
    “It is she,” said the fellow with the blood behind his ear. “She is the one who diverted me, while her fellow, he, I suppose, struck me.” He pointed then to the man.
    The girl shook her head; negatively. It seemed she wanted to speak.
    “What do you have in your mouth, Girl?” asked the praetor.
    One of the guardsmen opened her mouth, not gently, and retrieved the coin, a rather large one, a tarsk bit. Ten such coins make a copper tarsk. A hundred copper tarsks make a silver tarsk.
    The praetor placed the coin on his desk, the surface of which was some seven feet high, below the low, solid wooden bar The height of the praetor’s desk, he on the high stool behind it, permits him to see a goodly way up and down the wharves. Also, of course, one standing before the desk must look up to see the praetor, which, psychologically, tends to induce a feeling of fear for the power of the law. The wooden bar before the desk’s front edge makes it impossible to see what evidence or papers the praetor has at his disposal as he considers your case. Thus, you do not know for certain how much he knows. Similarly, you cannot tell what he writes on your papers.
    “Give me back my coin!” said the girl.
    “Be silent,” said a guardsman.
    “She is the one who cooperated in the attack upon you?” asked the praetor, indicating the bound girl.
    “Yes,” said the man with blood behind his ear.
    “No!” cried the girl. “I have never seen him before in my life!”
    “I see,” said the praetor. He apparently was not unfamiliar with the girl.
    “Ha!” snorted the man who had accused her.
    “How did you come to be helpless and tied beside the canal?” inquired the praetor.
    The girl looked about, wildly. “We were set upon by brigands, robbed, and left tied,” she said.
    There was laughter.
    “You must believe me,” she said. “I am a free woman!”
    “Examine the pouch of the man,” said the praetor.
    It was opened by a guardsman, who sifted his hands through coins.
    The girl looked, startled, at the pouch. She had apparently not understood that it had contained as much as it did. Her small hands pulled futilely, angrily, at the binding fiber which restrained them.
    “It seems that the fellow who robbed you,” smiled the praetor, “neglected to take your pouch.”
    The bound man said nothing. He glared sullenly downward.
    “He also left you a tarsk bit,” said the praetor, to the girl.
    “It was all I could save,” she said, lamely.
    There was more laughter.
    “I was not robbed,” said the bound man. “But I was unaccountably, from behind, struck down. I was then tied to this little she-urt. Her guilt is well known, I gather, on the wharves. Clearly enemies have intended to unjustly link me to her guilt.”
    “Turgus!” she cried.
    “I have never seen her before in my life,” he said.
    “Turgus!” she cried. “No,