Assassin of Gor (21 page)

There were other favored areas, too, about the stands, in the front, each covered by awnings, in which there sat members of the numerous high families of the city; I noted that some of these areas were now occupied by Merchants; I had no objection to this for I have always thought higher of the Merchants than many of my caste, but I was surprised; in the time of Marlenus, when he was Ubar of Ar, I think even his friend, Mintar, that great brilliant toad of a man, of the Caste of Merchants, would not have had so choice a vantage point from which to observe the races.

Across the track, on the far side, I heard a judge's bar clang indicating that one of the birds had missed a ring, and a colored disk, silver, was hauled to the top of a pole. There was a groan from many in the crowd and others cried out with delight. The rider was wheeling the bird, trying to bring it under control, and returning to the ring. By this time the other birds had flashed through it.

Below me I saw a hawker of sweetmeats angrily discarding four silver-glazed, numbered clay tiles.

The birds were now flashing through the great rings before me.

Yellow held the lead, followed by Red. Green had now moved up to third.

"Green! Green!" a woman was crying out, not far from me, her veil awry, her fists clenched.

The Administrator leaned forward even more on his throne. He was said to wager heavily on the races.

On the low wall, some seven or eight feet in height, some forty feet in width, which divided the track, I could see that only three of the great wooden tarn heads remained on their poles, indicating that only three laps remained in the race.

In a few moments, with a cry of victory, the rider of the Yellow brought his tarn to the first perch, followed closely by the Red and the Green. Then, one after another, Gold, Blue, Orange and Silver took their perches. The last two perches remained empty.

I looked to the area of the Administrator and saw the Hinrabian disgustedly turning away, dictating something to a scribe, who sat cross-legged near the throne, a sheaf of record papers in his hand. The High Initiate had risen to his feet and accepted a goblet from another Initiate, probably containing minced, flavored ices, for the afternoon was warm.

The crowd was now engaged in various pursuits, no fixed center now holding their attention. Several were going about seeking the odds Merchants, several of whom wandered in the stands, but others of whom kept their tables at the foot of the stands, on the sand itself, almost under the nets beneath the rings. The hawkers of candies and such were now crying their wares. I heard a slave girl wheedling her master for a pastry. Free women, here and there, were delicately putting tidbits beneath their veils. Some even lifted their veils somewhat to drink of the flavored ices. Some low-caste free women drank through their veils, and there were yellow and purple stains on the rep-cloth.

I heard a judge's bar sound twice, indicating that the next race would begin in ten Ehn.

There was some scurrying about to find the odds Merchants.

Almost everyone in the crowd wore some indication of the faction he favored. Generally, it was a small faction patch sewn on the left shoulder; the faction patches of the High-Caste women tended to be fine silk, and tastefully done; those of low-caste women merely a square of crudely stitched, dyed rep-cloth; some of the masters had dressed their slave girls in slave livery of the color of the faction they favored; others had twined a colored ribbon about their hair or in their collar.

"The races were better in the days of Marlenus of Ar," said a man behind me, leaning forward to speak to me.

I shrugged. I did not find it strange that he had spoken to me. When I had left the House of Cernus I had removed the livery of the black caste and had washed the sign of the dagger from my forehead. I wore a torn, red tunic, that of a Warrior. It was thus easier for me to move about the city. I would not be likely to be noticed, or feared. Men would more willingly speak to me.

"But," said the man glumly, "what can you expect with a Hinrabian on the throne of the Ubar."

"On the throne of the Administrator," said I, not turning about.

"There is only one who is first in Ar," said the man. "Marlenus, who was Ubar of Ar, he, the Ubar of Ubars."

"I would not speak so," I said. "There are those who might not care to hear such words."

I heard the man make a noise of amusement and lean back.

Marlenus, who had been Ubar of Ar many years ago, had founded the Empire of Ar, and had extended the hegemony of luxurious Ar over several of the cities of the north. He had fallen when I had purloined the Home Stone of the city. Later he had helped to free Ar after it had fallen to the horde of Pa-Kur, master of the Assassins, who had wished to become Ubar of the City, inheriting the medallion of office and putting about his shoulders the purple cloak of empire.

Marlenus, because he had lost the Home Stone and because the men of Ar feared him and his ambitions, had been publicly denied salt and fire, exiled from the city and forbidden to return on pain of death. He had become an outlaw in the Voltai, whence he could see, with loyal followers, the spires of Ar, Glorious Ar where once he had ruled as Ubar.

I knew that there were many in Ar who had not wished for the exile of Marlenus, particularly the lower castes, which he had always championed. Kazrak, who had been Administrator of the City for several years, had been popular but his straightforward attention, after he had put aside the Red of the Warrior and donned the Brown of the Administrator, to numerous and complex civil and economic matters, such as reform of the courts and laws and controls and regulations pertaining to commerce, had not been such as to inspire the general enthusiasm of the common citizens of Ar, in particular those who remembered with nostalgia the glories and splendors of the reign of Marlenus, that larl of a man, that magnificent Warrior, vain and self-centered, powerful, conceited, yet a dreamer of dreams, of a world undivided and safe for men, a world united, be it at the point of the swords of Ar.

I remembered Marlenus. He had been such that standing before men and lifting his hand, a thousand swords would be unsheathed in the sun, a thousand throats would cry his name, a thousand men would march or a thousand tarns would fly. Such a man needed to be exiled from Ar. Such a man could never be second in a city.

I heard the judge's bar ring three times and I could now see the tarns coming forth. There was a cry of expectancy from the crowd. Last-minute bets were being placed. Cushions were being rearranged.

Eight tarns were flying in this race, and, hooded, they were brought forth on low, sideless wheeled platforms, drawn by horned tharlarion. The carts were painted in faction colors. The rider rode on the cart beside his bird, dressed in the silk of his faction.

The tarns were, of course, racing tarns, a bird in many ways quite different from the common tarns of Gor, or the war tarns. The differences among these tarns are not simply in the training, which does differ, but in the size, strength, build and tendencies of the bird. Some tarns are bred primarily for strength and are used in transporting wares by carrying basket. Usually these birds fly more slowly and are less vicious than the war tarns or racing tarns. The war tarns, of course, are bred for both strength and speed, but also for agility, swiftness of reflex, and combative instincts. War tarns, whose talons are shod with steel, tend to be extremely dangerous birds, even more so than other tarns, none of whom could be regarded as fully domesticated.

The racing tarn, interestingly, is an extremely light bird; two men can lift one; even its beak is narrower and lighter than the beak of a common tarn or a war tarn; its wings are commonly broader and shorter than those of the other tarns, permitting a swifter take off and providing a capacity for extremely abrupt turns and shifts in flight; they cannot carry a great deal of weight and the riders, as might be expected, are small men, usually of low caste, pugnacious and aggressive. Racing tarns are not used by tarnsmen in war because they lack the weight and power of war tarns; meeting a war tarn in flight, a racing tarn would be torn to pieces in moments; further, the racing tarns, though marvelous in their particular ways, lack the stamina of the common tarn or the war tarn; their short wings, after a flight of perhaps only fifty pasangs, would begin to fail; in a short-distance dash, of course, the racing tarn would commonly be superior to the war tarn.

The tarns were now being unhooded and they leaped up, with a snap of their wings, to their perches, numbered and chosen by lot. Possession of the inside perch is regarded, of course, as an advantage. I noted Green had the inside perch this race. This would swing some Silver to Green surely, for men, though they have their factions, yet will purchase the tiles of the bird they feel has the best chance of winning. The same perches that are used in starting the race, incidentally, are the perches which the tarns will take after the race. The winning perch, or the first perch after the race, is that closest to the stands, rather than that closest to the dividing wall, the inside perch, which is first with respect to the beginning of the race, most desirable at the beginning, least desirable at the end.

I noted that two of the tarns in this race were not of given factions, but were the property of private owners, not associated with the faction corporations; their riders, similarly, were not faction riders; the rider, incidentally, is quite as important as the bird, for an experienced rider often manages to bring a new bird to the first perch, whereas even a fine bird, controlled poorly or timidly, is likely to be far outdone.

"Candies!" shined a small voice some yards below me. "Candies!"

I looked down and was startled to see, some four tiers below, not seeing me, the pathetic, stubby, bulbous little body of Hup the Fool, limping and hopping about in the aisle, his large head on the fat little body lolling one way or another, the tongue occasionally, suddenly, unexpectedly, protruding uncontrollably. His knobby hands were clutching a candy tray which was fastened behind his neck with a strap. "Candies!" he whined. "Candies!"

Many of the people he passed turned away. The free women drew their hoods about their faces. Some of the men angrily gestured for the little fool to hurry from their area, lest he spoil the races for their women. I did note that a young slave girl, however, perhaps about fifteen, with a coin given her by her master, did purchase a small candy from the little Hup. I might have bought some myself but I did not wish him to recognize me, assuming that his simple mind might hold the remembrance of our first meeting, that at the tavern of Spindius, where I had saved his life.

"Candies!" called the little fellow. "Candies!"

I supposed Hup, though he doubtless spent much of his time begging, made what money he could, and vending candies at the races might help him to live. I wondered if the golden tarn disk, that of Portus, which I had given to him at the tavern had been used to buy a vending license.

"I think I shall have a candy," said the man behind me.

I arose and turned away, leaving my place on the tier, that I might not be seen by Hup, should he approach the man. I looked neither to the left or right, but moved away.

"Candy!" called the man behind me.

"Yes, Master!" I heard Hup call and begin to make his way toward the man.

I found a seat several yards away, and, after a bit, noted Hup making his way down another aisle in the opposite direction.

"What is your faction?" asked the fellow whom I had sat down beside, a Metal Worker.

"I favor the Greens," I said, saying the first thing that came into my mind.

"I'm a Gold myself," he said. He wore a patch of golden cloth on his left shoulder.

The judge's bar rang once and there was a cry from the crowd and all leaped to their feet as, with a flurry of beating wings, almost at the instant the white cord was whipped away from in front of them, the tarns took flight.

The Green, which had had the inside perch, took the lead.

The track flown by the tarns is one pasang in length. In English measure the two sides of the track are each about seventeen hundred feet in length, and the measure at the corners would be something under a hundred and fifty feet in width.

The track itself, of course, is rather like a narrow, aerial rectangle with two rounded ends. The course is determined by twelve rings, hung on chains from great supporting towers; six of these "rings" are rectangular and six are round; the large rectangular "rings" are three on a side; the smaller, round rings are set at the corners of the dividing wall, and one at each of the narrowest portions of the dividing wall. Thus, in leaving the perches at the beginning of the race, the tarns pass first through three rectangular "rings," then come to the first turn, where they negotiate three round rings, two of which are at the corners; and then they encounter three more rectangular "rings" and then come to the second turn, where they again encounter three round rings, two at the corners and one in the center; skill is required in flying such a course, particularly in making the turns and passing through the small round rings.

If four tarns were flown perfectly, one above, one below, and one on each side, four could just pass through one of the round rings; one of the objects of course is to maneuver the tarn in such a way that it takes the center of the ring, or forces the following bird to strike the ring or miss it altogether; I doubt that this fierce form of racing would be practical were it not for the almost uncanny agility in flight of the short-winged racing tarns.