Marauders Of Gor – Counter Earth 09 John Norman Chapter 1 The Hall I sat alone in the great hall in the darkness in the Captains Chair. The walls of stone some five feet in thickness formed of large blocks loomed about me. Before meover the long heavy table behind which I sat I could see the large tiles of the hall floor. The table wasnot dark and bare. No longer was it set with festive yellow and scarlet cloths woven in distant Tor: nolonger did it bear the freight of plates of silver from the mines of Tharna nor of cunningly wrought gobletsof gold from the smithies of luxurious Turia Ar of the south. It was long since I had tasted the fiery pagaof the Sa-Tarna fields north of the Vosk. Now even the wines from the vineyards of Ar seemed bitter tome. I looked up at the narrow apertures in the wall to my right. Through them I could see certain of the starsof Gor in the tarn-black sky. The hall was dark. No longer did the several torches bristling and tarred burn in the iron rings at thewall. The hall was silent. No musicians played no cup companions laughed and drank lifting theirgoblets on the broad flat tiles before me under the torches barefoot collared in scarlet silks bells attheir wrists and ankles there danced no slave girls. The hall was large and empty and silent. I sat alone. Seldom did I have my chair carried from the hall. I remained much in this place. I heard footsteps approaching. I did not turn my head. It was caused me pain to do so. quotCaptainquot I heard.Page 1 It was Luma the chief scribe of my house in her blue robe and sandals. Her hair was blond and straighttied behind her head with a ribbon of blue wool from the bounding Hurt died in the blood of the Vosksorp. She was a scrawny girl not attractive but with deep eyes blue and she was a superb scribe inher accounting swift incisive accurate brilliant once she had been a paga slave though a poor one Ihad slaved her from Surbus a captain who had purchased her to slay her she not having served him tohis satisfaction in the alcoves of the tavern he would have cast her bound to the swift silken urts in thecanals. I had dealt