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considers her attractive. Then there are the "legends", the story of a woman
who stood be- fore an Imperial Legion commanded by Princess Tara, raised up a
weapon from another world, and caused them all to retreat in fear of "what"
stood there before them. I remember the duel between her and Carol, of whose
skills with a sword I took such pride in. I saw Lorraine "play" with the
woman, then cut her face when she grew "tired" of such "play". She is truly a
"WARLADY" in the full sense of the term. The greatest fighting woman of all
time!
"Did Sharon request `asylum' when she came here?" Lorraine suddenly
spoke. I shook my head in the negative, "aware" here of the implications of
what she had said. It being obvious that the extremely "competent" Imperial
Warlady doubtless "knew" the full details of what had "occurred" there in
Porlan! "Would you have `granted it' had she `requested' it?" Lorraine asked.
I silently nodded in reply, "aware" of no one but the woman there before me!
"It would have been the `end' of the Empire if you had, Ma- ris,"
Lorraine said then, standing there a few feet away from me. "For `better or
for worse', the Empire of California would have been no more," she continued,
her eyes burning right into my own! "The `end' of a civilization based upon
ideals I gave to a woman who died over five hundred years ago," the Queen of
Trelandar now said to me. "A return to earlier ideals of men who lived back in
the Eighteenth Century when life was much `simpler' than now."
I could feel the cold breath of the breeze on my cheek, the warmth of
the sun as it beamed down upon us, saw the way that the wind moved little
strands of Lorraine's hair, saw the rise and fall of her girlish bosom beneath
her clothing, looked into eyes that seemed to speak to me of ages now only
dusty musty history!! I knew that I was surrounded by people, both Dularnian
and from Darlanis' and Sharon's own ships, but just then there was but two
women standing there facing each other, with only "ghosts" of the past for
company. Thomas Jefferson, Tom Paine, others beside me, while beside Lorraine
stood Janet Rogers herself, her own "child" in a way, Lorraine having been the
"mother" of a civilization we now "studied" in school, read about in books,
some to "admire" while others saw it only as the last gasp of a technocratic
soci- ety that had died in fire, burned to ashes never to ever return.
"There is," I said to her, "Something more `important' than the survival
of civilizations, something that `separates' us from the beasts that roam the
forests, the creatures of the seas. A `concept' if you will that separates the
`civilized' from those who know only the cut of the sword, the flight of the
arrow." I saw Lorraine nod, her eyes gleam into mine as she nodded in turn.
"Perhaps there is `hope' yet for you, Maris of Sana," the Imperial
Warlady smiled, "extending" her hand, taking mine in it. "And this time we
won't make the `mistakes' that we did before."
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"You remind me of a cat with kittens," I smiled to Tori as my captain of
the Royal Guard checked on her guardswomen to see that everything was
"perfect". Tori is a very "competent" woman, if a bit of a "perfectionist" in
some ways about her guardswomen. Taking "pains" to see that I never had any
reason for complaint about them. She was "strict", but "fair" I knew in her
command.
"All we `need' is one `incident'," she answered, her dark brown eyes
meeting mine as I nodded understandingly in reply now. There were a lot of
people here in Arsana alone who had no love for either Darlanis or Lorraine,
and Prince Serak of the Nevadas was an arch enemy of the Wyomings, which only
added to Tori's own problems of seeing that nothing happened to anyone under
her pro- tection. We had already had a "problem" last night with some drunken
sailors off the Athena and Sarnian Lady, the "charge" of rape the barmaid had
issued against one of the sailors off Sarni- an Lady something that would
require the most delicate of han- dling. The man maintained that he believed
she was a prostitute, which the woman might have "been" despite the fact she
was not a member of the "Guild", there being a number of "free lancers" who
refused to pay the "dues" that the Prostitute Guild required of its members.
The investigating guardsmen had told Tori that the woman's skirt was as
"short" as any "hip swinger's", and that it was known that she did at times
"sell" her "favors" to men. This last in my opinion indicating that she
probably "was" what the Imperial sailor had maintained she was, although I
thought it was rather "stupid" of him not to determine her true "status"
before he had sexual intercourse with her there up above the bar room...
Especially as I understood she had not gone "willingly" with him!
"What do you `think' of that `incident' last night?" I said to Tori as
she finished checking her women's appearance to see it was as "good" as it
could be. Darlanis had her own "guardswomen" with her, as did Sharon, and we
also now had Lorraine's too, all of whom of course had their first loyalties
to their own monarch.
"Rape is rape, even if the woman is a prostitute," Tori said in level
tones, as if she thought that I wouldn't agree with her. "Even a prostitute
has the right to refuse sex if she wants to." The sailor in question having
stated that the barmaid had refused to accept his money, claiming that she'd
never consented to "it"!
"The city guardsmen who interviewed her said that her skirt was way up
to `here'," I smiled, indicating the "spot" on my own thighs. Such a skirt
would have been only a few inches below my crotch. Those of prostitutes are
often of that "height", I knew.
"A lot of barmaids wear short skirts," Tori replied, "And not always of
their own free will either," she pointed out to me. It not being uncommon for
the owners of such "establishments" to require his barmaids to wear such
attire or go find another job. "We need `laws' to protect a woman from having
to `dress' like a prostitute or a slave girl in order to keep a job," Tori [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]