Nomads of Gor (61 page)

         
be followed. I dismissed this possibility, however, for, glanc-

         
ing about, I could find no one I might fear. The only person

         
I saw more than once was a slip of a girl in Robes of

         
Concealment and veil, a market basket on her arm, who the

 
        
second time passed me, not noticing me. I breathed a sigh of

         
relief. It is a nerve-wracking business, the negotiation of an

enemy city, knowing that discovery might bring torture or

sudden death, at best perhaps an Impalement by sundown on

the city's walls, a warning to any other who might be similar-

ly tempted to transgress the hospitality of a Gorean city.

I came to the ring of flat, cleared ground, some hundred

feet or so wide, which separates the walled compound of

buildings which constitutes the House of Saphrar of Turia

from all the surrounding structures. I soon learned, to my

irritation, that one could not approach the high compound

wall more closely than ten spear lengths.

"Get away you!" cried a guard from the wall, with a

crossbow. "There is no loitering here"

"But master!" I cried. "I have gems and jewels to show the

noble Saphrar!"

"Approach then the nearer gate!" he called. "And state

your business."

I found a rather small gate in the wall, heavily barred, and

begged admittance to show my wares to Saphrar. I hoped to

be ushered into his presence and then, on the threat of

slaying him, secure the golden sphere and a tarn for escape.

To my chagrin I was not admitted into the compound,

but my pitiful stock of almost worthless stones was examined

outside the gate by a steward in the company of two armed

warriors. It took him only a few moments to discover the

value of the stones and, when he did, with a cry of disgust,

he hurled them away from the gate into the dust, and the

two warriors, while I pretended fright and pain, belabored

me with the hilts of their weapons. "Be gone, Fool!" they

snarled.

I hobbled after the stones, and fell to my knees in the

dust, scrabbling after them, moaning and crying aloud.

 
I heard the guards laugh.

I had just picked up the last stone and tucked it back in

my pouch and was about to rise from my knees when I

found myself staring at the high, heavy sandals, almost boots,

of a warrior.

 
"Mercy, Master," I whined.

"Why are you carrying a sword beneath your robe?" he

asked.

I knew the voice. It was that of Kamras of Turia, Champi-

on of the City, whom Kamchak had so sorely bested in the

games of Love War.

 
I lunged forward seizing him by the legs and upended him

         
in the- dust and then leaped to my feet and ran, the hood

         
flying off behind me.

         
I heard him cry. "Stop that man! Stop him! I know him!

         
He is Tart Cabot of Ko-ro-ba! Stop him!"

         
I stumbled in the long robe of the merchant and cursed

         
and leaped up and ran again. The bolt of a crossbow splat-

         
tered into a brick wall on my right, gouging a cupful of

          
masonry loose in chips and dust.
          
;,

         
I darted down a narrow street. I could hear someone,

         
probably Kamras, and then one or two others running after

         
me. Then I heard a girl cry out, and scream, and two men

         
curse. I glanced behind me to see that the girl who carried

         
the market basket had inadvertently fallen in front of the

         
warriors. She was crying angrily at them and waving her

         
broken basket. They pushed her rudely to one side and -

         
hurried on. By that time I had rounded a corner and leaped

         
to a window, pulled myself up to the next window, and

         
hauled myself up again and onto the flat roof of a shop. I

         
heard the running feet of the two warriors, and then of six

         
more men, pass in the street below. Then some children,

         
screaming, ran after the soldiers. I heard some speculative

         
conversation in the street below, between two or three pas-

         
sersby, then it seemed quiet.

         
I lay there scarcely daring to breathe. The sun on the flat

         
roof was hot. I counted five Gorean Ehn, or minutes. Then I

         
decided I had better move across the roofs in the opposite

         
direction, find a sheltered roof, stay there until nightfall and

         
then perhaps try to leave the city. I might go after the

    
     
wagons, which would be moving slowly, obtain the tarn I had

         
left with them, and then return on tarnback to Saphrar's

         
house. It would be extremely dangerous, of course, to leave

         
the city in the near future. Certainly word would be at

         
the gates to watch for me. I had entered Turia easily. I did

         
not expect I would leave as easily as I had entered. But how

         
could I stay in the city until vigilance at the gates might be

         
relaxed, perhaps three or four days from now? Every guards-

         
man in Turia would be on the lookout for Tarl Cabot, who

         
unfortunately, was not difficult to recognize.

         
About this time I heard someone coming along the street

         
whistling a tune. I had heard it. Then I realized that I had

         
heard it among the wagons of the Tuchuks. It was a Tuchuk

         
tune, a wagon tune, sometimes sung by the girls with the

         
bask sticks.

           
I picked up the melody and whistled a few bars, and then

 
the person below joined me and we finished the turn.

 
Cautiously I poked my head over the edge of the roof. The

 
street was deserted save for a girl, who was standing below,

 
looking up toward the roof. She was dressed in veil and

 
Robes of Concealment. It was she whom I had seen before,

 
when I had thought I might be followed. It was she who had

 
inadvertently detained my pursuers. She carried a broken

 
market basket.

   
"You make a very poor spy, Tart Cabot," she said.

   
"Dina of Turia!" 1 cried.

 
I stayed four days in the rooms above the shop of Dina of

 
Turia. There I dyed my hair black and exchanged the robes

 
of the merchant for the yellow and brown tunic of the

 
Bakers, to which caste her father and two brothers had

 
belonged.

 
Downstairs the wooden screens that had separated the

 
shop from the street had been splintered apart; the counter

 
had been broken and the ovens ruined, their oval domes

 
shattered, their iron doors twisted from their hinges; even the

 
top stones on tile two grain mills had been thrown to the

 
floor and broken.

 
At one time, I gathered from Dina, her father's shop had

 
been the most famed of the baking shops of Turia, most of

 
which are owned by Saphrar of Turia, whose interests range

 
widely, though operated naturally, as Gorean custom would

 
require, by members of the Caste of Bakers. Her father had

 
refused to sell the shop to Saphrar's agents, and take his

 
employment under the merchant. Shortly thereafter some

 
seven or eight ruffians, armed with clubs and iron ban, had

 
attacked the shop, destroying its equipment. In attempting to

 
defend against this attack both her father and her two older

 
brothers had been beaten to death. Her mother had died

 
shortly thereafter of shock. Dina had lived for a time on the

 
savings of the family, but had then taken them, sewn in the

 
lining of her roles, and purchased a place on a caravan

 
wagon bound for Ar, which caravan had been ambushed by

 
Kassars, in which raid she herself, of course, had fallen into

 
their hands.

 
"Would you not like to hire men and reopen the shop?" I

 
asked.

   
"I have no money," she said.

   
"I have very little," I said, taking the pouch and spilling

        
the stones in a glittering if not very valuable heap on the

        
small table in her central room.

         
She laughed and poked through them with her fingers. "I

         
learned something of jewels," she said, "in the wagons of

         
Albrecht and Kamchak and there is scarcely a silver tarn

         
disk's worth here."

          
"I paid a golden tarn disk for them," I asserted.

          
"But to a Tuchuk" she said.

          
"Yes," I admitted.

         
"My dear Tart Cabot," she said, "my sweet dear Tarl

         
Cabot." Then she looked at me and her eyes saddened.

         
"But," said she, "even had I the money to reopen the shop

         
it would mean only that the men of Saphrar would come

         
again."

          
I was silent. I supposed what she said was true.

           
"Is there enough there to buy passage to Ar?" I asked.

         
"No," she said. "But I would prefer in any case to remain

  
       
in Turia it is my home."

                                                      
"How do you live?" I asked.
    
I

         
"I shop for wealthy women," said she, "for pastries and |

         
tarts and cakes things they will not trust their female slaves

         
to buy."

         
In answer to her questions I told her the reason for which

         
I had entered the city to steal an object of value from

         
Saphrar of Turia, which he himself had stolen from the