Hunters of Gor (6 page)

fear the iron. You will not make us speak. We are panther girls.”

“Bring candies,” said I to a seaman.

He did so.

I tossed one to each of the girls. They took the candies. They were sitting now,

on the deck, but not cross-legged. They knew that posture would not be permitted

them. Their chains dangled to the rings.

When they had finished, I merely regarded them.

“You are a man,” said the first. “We will not speak. It does not matter what you

do to us. We do not fear the whip. We do not fear the iron. We will not speak.

We are panther girls.”

I threw each of them another candy. Then, not speaking further, I rose to my

feet, and left them.

On the fore quarter I spoke to Rim and Thurnock. “Tomorrow,” I told them,

“briefly, we will put into land.”

“Yes, Captain,” they said.

“Take the chains from their necks,” I told a seaman.

The girls looked up at me.

It was not the next night, that following my first interrogation of the panther

girls, the evening of the day following that of my acquisition of the two male

slaves.

We would make landfall in Lydius in the morning, an important river port at the

mouth of the Laurius.

The chains were removed from the necks of the girls. They had been well treated

today. They had been fed well, and sufficiently watered. After their meals,

candies had been given them. They had been permitted to wash themselves, with a

bucket of warm water, and to comb one another’s hair.

“Tie their ankles tightly,” I said, “and their wrists, too, behind their backs.”

We had put into land briefly this afternoon. And Thurnock, and Rim, with snares,

had gone into the forest. Other men had accompanies them, with water kegs. The

girls, chained on the sanded deck of the stern quarter, fastened by their yard

of chain, blocked by the kitchen area, and behind crates and lashed boxes, could

not see what transpired.

Had they been able to see, they would have seen men returning to the Tesephone,

with water kegs, and Thurnock and Rim returning too, Thurnock carrying an object

on his back, bulky but apparently not particularly heavy. The object had been

covered with a canvas.

The girls were thrown forward on their belly on the sanded deck.

Each felt her ankles lashed together, tightly. Each then felt her wrists jerked

behind her back, and similarly lashed.

They lay before me.

“Take them to the lower hold,” I said.

The lower hold is the tiny crawl space, of some eighteen inches, between the

deck of the first hold and the curved hull of the ship, divided by its keel. It

is unlit, and cold and damp. It contains much sand, used as ballast for the

galley. It also contains the sump, or bilge. It is a briny, foul place.

The girls were carried from the deck. They were handed down the hatch to the

first hold, and then, by others, handed down the hatch to the lower hold, which

lies near the fore quarter of the ship. I gave the orders that they be placed on

the sand well within the lower hold, which lies near the stern quarter, far from

the hatch. They were so placed. The heavy grated hatch was then replaced over

the opening to the lower hold. Bolts were shoved in place. Then the grating was

itself covered, with two sheets of opaque tarpaulin, fastened down at the edges.

The lower hold would now be in pitch darkness.

In the forests, this afternoon, Thurnock and Rim, who were familiar with such

matters, the first as a peasant, and catch, returned to the Tesephone, in a

cage, covered with canvas, carried on the back of Thurnock, had been six, rather

large forest urts, about the size of tiny dogs. This evening, after the evening

meal, we had opened the cage into the lower hold. They had scurried from the

cage, dropping down to the sand, scampering off into the darkness.

I, with Thurnock and Rim, went back to the kitchen area. There was again fried

vulo, and there was some left. I did not think it would take long for the girls

to discover that they were not alone in the lower hold.

I nibbled at the fried vulo.

There was suddenly, from below decks, muffled, as thought far off, a terrified

scream.

Had they heard movements in the darkness? Had they seen the gleam of tiny eyes?

Burning at them from the blackness? Had one of them heard the breathing of tiny

lungs near her face in the darkness? Had another felt fur brush against her

calf, or tiny feet scampering unexpectedly over her bound body?

Both girls were now screaming.

I could imagine them, nude, bound, thrashing in the sand, terrified,

hysterically jerking at the binding fiber which would continue to hold them.

The screams were now piteous. They had been proud panther women. They were now

hysterical, terrified girls.

I continued to nibble on the vulo leg.

A seaman approached. “Captain, said he, “the wenches in the lower hold crave

audience.”

I smiled. “Very well,” I said.

In a few moments, both girls, covered with wet sand, on their bodies, and in

their eye lashes and hair, were placed, kneeling, before me. They were still

perfectly secured. I sat, as before, on my stool behind the kitchen area. They

knelt, as before, near the rings to which they had been chained. Only now both

of them thrust their heads to the deck at my feet. They were shuddering

uncontrollably, spasmodically.

“The camp and dancing circle, of Verna,” said the first girl, Tana, “lies north

and east of Laura. Then, where the forest begins, look for a Tur tree, blazed

ten feet above the ground, with the point of a girl’s spear. From this tree,

travel generally north, seeking similarly blazed trees, a quarter of a pasang

apart. There are fifty such trees. At the fiftieth there is a double blaze. Go

then north by northeast. Again the trees are blazed, but now, at the foot of the

truck, by the mark of a sleen knife. Go twenty such trees. Then look for a Tur

tree, torn by lightning. A pasang north by northeast from that tree, again look

for blazed tree, but now the blazing is, as before, high on the trunk, and made

by a girl’s spear. Again go twenty such trees. You will then be in the vicinity

of Verna’s dancing circle. Her camp, on the north bank of a tiny stream, well

concealed, is two pasangs to the north.”

Both girls lifted their head. Would I return them to the lower hold? Their eyes

were terrified.

“What is your name?” I asked the first girl.

“Tana,” she whispered.

“What is your name?” I asked the second girl.

“Ela,” she said.

“You have no names,” I told them, “for you are slaves.”

They put down their heads.

“Chain them again by the necks,” I said to a seaman. It was done.

“Unbind them,” I said.

The girls’ bonds were removed.

They looked up at me, kneeling, terrified. They were chained by the neck.

I looked into their eyes.

They looked up at me, piteous, the slaves.

“In the morning,” I said, “sell them in Lydius.”

They put down their heads, sobbing.

3
     
I Buy a Thief

A girl bumped into me, black haired, briefly skirted in brown, bare armed,

barefoot, tanned, a small, sensuous wench, free.

We were jostling through crowds near the docks of Lydius.

Rim was with me, and Thurnock.

I looked after the girl, disappearing in the crowd. She had been free. She was

safe from enslavement in her own city. She had perhaps grown up along the docks,

and in the alleys behind the paga taverns.

I had noticed something about her, the side of her head, beneath her hair, as

she had slipped swiftly past, but, at the moment, I could not place it.

Some free girls, with family, I knew, kept themselves, as best they could, in

certain port cities.

I glanced about myself, in the crowds, as we worked out way through them.

I say a blond giant from Torvaldsland, with braided hair, in shaggy jacket; a

merchant from Tyros, hurrying, perfumed and sleek; seamen from Cos, and Port

Kar, mortal enemies, yet passing one another without thought in the streets of

Lydius; a black woman, veiled in yellow, borne in a palanquin by eight black

warriors, perhaps from as far south as Anango or Ianda; two hunters, perhaps

from Ar, cowled in the heads of forest panthers; a wood cutter from one of the

villages north of Lydius, his sticks bound on his back; a peasant, from south of

Laurius, with a basket of suls; an intent, preoccupied scribe lean and clad in

the scribe’s blue, with a scroll, perhaps come north for high fees to tutor the

sons of rich men; a brown-clad, hearty fellow from Laura, some two hundred

pasangs upriver; a slaver, with the medallion of Ar over his robes; two blond

slave girls, clad in brief white, bells on their left ankles, walking together

and laughing, speaking in the accents of Thentis; I saw even a warrior of the

Tuchuks, from the distant, treeless plains of the south, thought I did not know

him; it was not by the epicanthic fold that I recognized him; it was by the

courage scars, high on his angular cheekbones.

I overheard an argument, between a seller of vegetables and two low-caste women,

in simple robes of concealment.

Elsewhere I heard a vendor of pastries crying his wares. From within a nearby

paga tavern I heard the sounds of musicians.

A physician, in his green robes, hurried past.

And I could smell the sea, Thassa, and the intermingling of the Laurius, with

its fresh water, feeding into gleaming Thassa. I could smell tharlarion, and

fish.

We had taken the Tesephone to mooring at a public dock. I wished to spend some

days in Lydius, to lay in adequate supplies for the hunt.

I knew I was some days behind Marlenus of Ar, who now, I supposed, might be in

Laura, upriver.

He sought Verna, for vengeance, because his honor had been challenged.

I sought Talena, who had once been my free companion, now said to be slave of

the outlaw girl, Verna.

I recalled Telima, who, prior to my departure for the north, had returned to her

beloved marshes. I was angry.

I must seek Talena!

Thurnock, at my command, had this morning sold the two panther girls, Tana and

Ela, at the slave market. It is quite near the wharves in Lydius.

I did not think it would be easy to find Talena, but I was confident that I

could do so.

A leather worker passed me.

I did not, on nearing Lydius, fly the flag of Bosk, that bearing the head of a

bosk, black, across a field of vertical green bars, the famous flag of Bosk,

from the Marshes.

I did not wish to be recognized. I, and Rim and Thurnock, wore the simple tunics

of seamen.

I would call myself Bosk, of Tabor. Tabor is an exchange island in Thassa, south

of Teletus. It is named for the drum, which, rearing out of the sea, it

resembles. My business was to go to Laura, and there bargain for a hold of sleen

fur, which might be taken south for much profit. Some eight to ten bales of

sleen fur, highly prized, is a plausible cargo for a light galley. That the

Tesephone, a ram-ship, was engaging in commerce was unusual, but not

particularly so, especially considering the cargo we were putatively interested

in carrying. Most commercial voyages, needless to say, are carried out in

deeper-keeled, broader-beamed ships, the famed round ships of Thassa.

The representative of the Merchants, to whom I reported my business, and to whom

I paid wharfage, asked no questions. He did not even demand the proof of

registration of the Tesephone of Tabor. The Merchants, who control Lydius, under

merchant law, for it is a free port, like Helmutsport, and Schendi and Bazi, are

more interested in having their port heavily trafficked than strictly policed.

Indeed, at the wharves I had even seen two green ships. Green is the color

common to pirates. I supposed, did they pay their wharfage and declare some sort

of business, the captains of those ships were as little interrogated as i. The

governance of Lydius, under the merchants, incidentally, is identical to that of

the exchange islands, or free islands, in Thassa. Three with which I was

familiar, from various voyages, were Tabor, Teletus and, to the north, offshore

from Torvaldsland, Scagnar. Of these, to be honest, and to give the merchants

their due, I will admit that Tabor and Teletus are rather strictly controlled.

It is said, however, by some of the merchants there, that this manner of caution

and restriction, has to some extent diminished their position in the spheres of

trade. Be that as it may, Lydius, though not what you would call an open port,

was indulgent, and permissive. Most ports and islands on Thassa, of course, are

not managed by the Merchants, but, commonly, by magistrates appointed by the

city councils. In Port Kar, my city, the utilization of the facilities of the

port is regulated by a board of four magistrates, the Port Consortium, which

reports directly to the Council of Captains, which, since the downfall of the

warring Ubars, is sovereign in the city. I suppose the magistrate, who, with his

papers, met us at the dock, did not believe my story.

He was smiling, when he wrote down my putative business. He had looked at my