Nomads of Gor (48 page)

 
were preparing to move. Already the herds had been eased

       
westward, away from Turia toward Thassa, the distant sea.

       
There was much grooming of wagon bask, checking of har-

       
ness and wagons, cutting of meat to be dried hanging from

       
the sides of the moving wagons in the sun and wind. In the

       
morning the wagons, in their long lines, would follow the

       
slowly moving herds away from Turia. Meanwhile the Omen I

       
Taking, even with the participation of the Tuchuk haruspexes, ~

       
continued for the haruspexes of the people would remain j

       
behind until even the final readings had been completed. I

       
had heard, from a master of hunting sleen, that the Omens

       
were developing predictably, several to one against the choice

       
of a Ubar San. Indeed, the difficulty of the Tuchuks with the

       
Turians had possibly, I guessed, exerted its influence on an

       
omen or two in passing. One could hardly blame the Kassars,

       
the Kataii and Paravaci for not wanting to be led by a

       
Tuchuk against Turia or for not wanting to acquire the

       
Tuchuk troubles by uniting with them in any fashion. The

       
Paravaci were particularly insistent on maintaining the inde-

       
pendence of the peoples

       
Since the death of Kutaituchik, Kamchak had turned ugly

       
in manner. Now he seldom drank or joked or laughed. I

       
missed his hitherto frequent proposals of contests, races and

       
wagers. He now seemed dour, moody, consumed with hatred

       
for Turia and Turians. He seemed particularly vicious with

       
Aphris. She was Turian. When he returned that night from

       
the wagon of Kutaituchik to his own wagon he strode angrily

       
to the sleen cage where he had confined Aphris with Eliza-

       
beth during the putative attack. He unlocked the door and

       
ordered the Turian maiden forth, commanding her to stand

       
before him, head down. Then, without speaking, to her

       
consternation he tore swiftly away the yellow camisk and

       
fastened slave bracelets on her wrists. "I should whip you,"

       
he said. The girl trembled. "But why, Master?" she asked.

       
"Because you are Turian," he said. The girl looked at him

       
with tears in her eyes. Roughly Kamchak took her by the

       
arm and thrust her into the sleen cage beside the miserable

       
Elizabeth Cardwell. He shut the door and locked it. "Mas-

       
ter?" questioned Aphris. "Silence, Slave," he said. The girl

       
dared not speak. "There both of you will wait for the Iron

       
Master," he snarled, and turned abruptly, and went to the

       
stairs to the wagon. But the Iron Master did not come that

       
night, or the next, or the next. In these days of siege and war

       
there were more important matters to attend to than the

       
branding and collaring of female slaves. "Let him ride with

 
his Hundred," Kamchak said. "They will not run away let

 
them wait like she-sleep in their cage not knowing on which

 
day the iron will come." Also, perhaps for no reason better

 
than his suddenly found hatred for Aphris of Turia, he

 
seemed in no hurry to free the girls from their confinement.

 
"Let them crawl out," he snarled, "begging for a brand."

 
Aphris, in particular, seemed utterly distraught by Kamchak's

 
unreasoning cruelty, his callous treatment of herself and Eliza-

 
beth perhaps most by his sudden, seeming indifference to

 
her. I suspected, though the girl would not have dreamed of

 
making the admission, that her heart as well as her body

 
might nova rightfully have been claimed as his by the cruel

 
Ubar of the Tuchuks. Elizabeth Cardwell refused to meet my

 
eyes, and would not so much as speak to me. "Go away!" she

 
would cry. "Leave me!" Kamchak, once a day, at night, the

 
hour in which sleen are fed, would throw the girls bits of

 
bask meat and fill a pan of water kept in the cage. I

 
remonstrated with him frequently in private but he was

 
adamant. He would look at Aphris and then return to the

 
wagon and sit cross-legged, not speaking, for hours, staring at

 
the side of the wagon. Once he pounded the rug on the

 
polished floor in front of him and cried out angrily, as though

 
to remind himself of some significant and inalterable fact,

 
"She is Turian! Turian!" The work of the wagon was done by

 
Tuka and another girl, whom Kamchak hired for the pur-

 
pose. When the wagons were to move, Tuka was to walk

 
beside the cart of the sleen cage, drawn by a single bask, and

 
 
with a bask stick guide the animal. I once spoke harshly to

 
her when I saw her cruelly poke Elizabeth Cardwell through

 
the bars with the bask stick. Never did she do so again when I

 
was nearby. She seemed to leave the distressed, red-eyed

 
Aphris of Turia alone, perhaps because she was Turian,

 
perhaps because she had no grievance against her. "Where

 
now is the pelt of the red larl, Slave?" Tuka would taunt

 
Elizabeth, threatening her with the bask stick. "You will look

 
pretty with a ring in your nose!" she would cry. "You will

 
like your collar! Wait until you feel the iron, Slave like

 
Tuka!" Kamchak never reproved Tuka, but I would silence

 
her when I was present. Elizabeth endured the insults as

 
though paying no attention, but sometimes at night I could

 
hear her sobbing.

 
I searched among the wagons long before I found, sitting

 
cross-legged beneath a wagon, wrapped in a worn bosk robe,

        
his weapons at hand folded in leathers the young man whose

   
     
name was Harold, the blond-haired, blue-eyed fellow who

        
had been so victimized by Hereena, she of the First Wagon,

        
who had fallen spoils to Turia in the games of Love War.

        
He was eating a piece of bask meat in the Tuchuk fashion,

        
holding He meat in his left hand and between his teeth, and

        
cutting pieces from it with a quiva scarcely a quarter inch

        
from his lips, then chewing the severed bite and then again

        
holding the meat in his hand and teeth and cutting again.

        
Without speaking I sat down near him and watched him

        
eat. He eyed me warily, and neither did he speak. After a

        
time I said to him, "How are the bask?"

        
"They are doing as well as night be expected," he said.

        
"Are the quivas sharp?" I inquired.

        
"We try to keep them that way," he said.

        
"It is important," I observed, "to keep the axles of wagons

        
greased."

        
"Yes," he said, "I think so."

        
He handed me a piece of meat and I chewed on it.

        
"You are Tart Cabot, the Koroban," he said.

        
"Yes," I said, "and you are Harold the Tuchuk."

        
He looked at me and smiled. "Yes," he said, "I am

        
Harold the Tuchuk."

        
"I am going to Turia," I said.

        
'That is interesting," said Harold, "I, too, am going to

        
Turia."

        
"On an important matter?" I inquired.

        
"No," he said.

        
"What is it you think to do?" I asked.

        
"Acquire a girl," he said.

        
"Ah," I said.

        
"What is it you wish in Turia?" inquired Harold.

        
"Nothing important," I remarked.

        
"A woman?" he asked.

        
"No," I said, "a golden sphere."

        
"I know of it," said Harold, "it was stolen from the wagon

        
of Kutaituchik." He looked at me. "It is shill to lie worth-

        
less."

        
"Perhaps," I admitted, "but I think I shall go to Turia and

        
look about for it. Should I chance to see it I might pick it up

        
and bring it back with me."

        
"Where do you think this golden sphere will be lying

        
about?" asked Harold.

 
"I expect," I said "it might be found here or there in the

 
House of Saphrar, a merchant of Turia."

 
"That is interesting," said Harold, "for I had thought I

 
might try chain luck in the Pleasure Gardens of a Turian

 
merchant named Saphrar."

 
"That is interesting indeed," I said, "perhaps it is the

 
same."

 
"It is possible," granted Harold. "Is he the smallish fellow,

 
rather fat, with two yellow teeth."

 
"Yes," l said.

 
"Then I shall attempt not to he hitter," I said.

 
"I think that is a good idea," granted Harold.

 
Then we sat there together for a time, not speaking fur-

 
ther, he eating, I watching while he cut and chewed the meat

 
that was his supper. There was a fire nearby, but it was not

 
his fire. The wagon over his head was not his wagon. There

 
was no kaiila tethered at hand. As far as ~ could gather

 
Harold had little more than the clothes on his back, a

 
boskhide robe, his weapons and his supper.

 
"You will be slain in Turia," said Harold, finishing his

 
meat and wiping his mouth in Tuchuk fashion on the back of