Outlaw of Gor (11 page)

“Unthinkable!” cried Lara, rising to her feet. “None who wear the silver mask could be disloyal to Tharna!”

“Yet it is so,” sniveled Ost.

“Who is the traitress?” demanded Lara.

“I do not know her name,” said Ost.

Thorn laughed.

“But,” said Ost, hopefully, “I once spoke with her and I might recognise her voice if I were but allowed to live.”

Thorn laughed again. “It is a trick to buy his life.”

“What think you, Dorna the Proud?” asked Lara of she who was Second in Tharna.

But instead of answering, Dorna the Proud seemed strangely silent. She extended her silver-gloved hand, palm facing her body and chopped brutally down with it, as though it might have been a blade.

“Mercy, Great Dorna!” screamed Ost.

Dorna repeated the gesture, slowly, cruelly.

But the hands of Lara were extended, palms up, and she lifted them slightly; it was a gracious gesture that spoke of mercy.

“Thank you, Beloved Tatrix,” whimpered Ost, his eyes bursting with tears, “Thank you!”

“Tell me, Serpent,” said Lara, “did the warrior steal the coins from you?”

“No, no,” blubbered Ost.

“Did you give them to him?” she demanded.

“I did,” he said. “I did.”

“And did he accept them?” she asked.

“He did,” said Ost.

“You pressed the coins upon me and ran,” I said. “I had no choice.”

“He accepted the coins,” muttered Ost, looking at me malevolently, determined apparently that I would share whatever fate lay in store for him.

“I had no choice,” I said calmly.

Ost shot a venomous look in my direction.

“If I were a conspirator,” I said, “if I were in league with this man, why would he have charged me with the theft of the coins, why would he have had me arrested?”

Ost blanched. His tiny, rodentlike mind scurried from thought to thought, but his mouth only moved uncontrollably, silently.

Thorn spoke. “Ost knew himself to be suspected of plotting against the throne.”

Ost looked puzzled.

“Thus,” said Thorn, “to make it seem he had not given the money to this warrior, or assassin as the case may be, he pretended it had been stolen from him. In that way he might at one time appear free from guilt and destroy the man who knew of his complicity.”

“That is true,” exclaimed Ost gratefully, eager to take his cue from so powerful a figure as Thorn.

“How is it that Ost gave you the coins, Warrior?” asked the Tatrix.

“Ost gave them to me,” I said, “... as a gift.”

Thorn threw back his head and laughed.

“Ost never gave anything away in his life,” roared Thorn, wiping his mouth, struggling to regain his composure.

There was even a slight sound of amusement from the silver-masked figures who sat upon the steps to the throne.

Ost himself snickered.

But the mask of the Tatrix glittered upon Ost, and his snicker died in his thin throat. The Tatrix arose from her throne, and pointed her finger at the wretched conspirator. Her voice was cold as she spoke to the guardsman who had brought him to the chamber. “To the mines with him,” she said.

“No, Beloved Tatrix, no!” cried Ost. Terror, like a trapped cat, seemed to scratch behind his eyes, and he began to shake in his yoke like a diseased animal. Scornfully the guardsman lifted him to his feet and dragged him stumbling and whimpering from the room. I gathered the sentence to the mines was equivalent to a sentence of death.

“You are cruel,” I said to the Tatrix.

“A Tatrix must be cruel,” said Dorna.

“That,” I said, “I would hear from the mouth of the Tatrix herself.”

Dorna stiffened at the rebuff.

After a time the Tatrix, who had resumed her throne, spoke. Her voice was quiet. “Sometimes, Stranger,” she said, “it is hard to be First in Tharna.”

I had not expected that answer.

I wondered what sort of woman was the Tatrix of Tharna, what lay concealed behind that mask of gold. For a moment I felt sorry for the golden creature before whose throne I knelt.

“As for you,” said Lara, her mask glittering down upon me, “you admit that you did not steal the coins from Ost, and in this admission you admit that he gave them to you.”

“He thrust them in my hand,” I said, “and ran.” I looked at the Tatrix. “I came to Tharna to obtain a tarn. I had no money. With Ost's coins I could have purchased one and continued my journey. Should I have thrown them away?”

“These coins,” said Lara, holding the tiny sack in her hand, gloved in gold, “were to buy my death.”

“So few coins?” I asked skeptically.

“Obviously the full sum would follow upon the accomplishment of the deed,” she said.

“The coins were a gift,” I said. “Or so I thought.”

“I do not believe you,” she said.

I was silent.

“What full sum did Ost offer you?” she asked.

“I refused to be a party to his schemes,” I said.

“What full sum did Ost offer you?” repeated the Tatrix.

“He spoke,” I said, “of a tarn, a thousand golden tarn disks and provisions for a long journey.”

“Golden tarn disks–unlike those of silver–are scarce in Tharna,” said the Tatrix. “Someone is apparently willing to pay highly for my death.”

“Not your death,” I said.

“Then what?” she asked.

“Your abduction,” I said.

The Tatrix stiffened suddenly, her entire body trembling with fury. She rose, seemingly beside herself with rage.

“Bloody the yoke,” urged Dorna.

Thorn stepped forward, his blade raised.

“No,” screamed the Tatrix, and, to the astonishment of all, herself descended the broad steps of the dais.

Shaking with fury she stood before me, over me, in her golden robes and mask. “Give me the whip!” she cried. “Give it to me!” The man with the wrist straps hastily knelt before her, lifting it to her hands. She snapped it cruelly in the air, and its report was sharp and vicious.

“So,” she said to me, both hands clenched on the butt of the whip, “you would have me before you on the scarlet rug bound with yellow cords, would you?”

I did not understand her meaning.

“You would have me in a camisk and collar would you?” she hissed hysterically.

The women of the silver masks recoiled, shuddering. There were exclamations of anger, of horror.

“I am a woman of Tharna,” she screamed, “First in Tharna! First!”

Then, beside herself with rage, holding the whip in both hands, she lashed madly at me. “It is the kiss of the whip for you!” she screamed. Again and again she struck me, yet through it all I managed to stay on my knees, not to fall.

My senses reeled, my body, tortured by the weight of the silver yoke, now wrapped in the flames of the whip, shook with uncontrollable agony. Then, when the Tatrix had exhausted herself, by some effort I find it hard to comprehend, I managed to stand on my feet, bloody, wearing the yoke, my flesh in tatters–and look down upon her.

She turned and fled to the dais. She ran up the steps and turned only when she stood at last before her throne. She pointed her hand imperiously at me, that hand wearing its glove of gold, now spattered with my blood, wet and dark from the sweat of her hand.

“Let him be used in the Amusements of Tharna!” she said.

I had been hooded and driven through the streets, stumbling under the weight of the yoke. at last I had entered a building and had descended a long, swirling ramp, through dank passages. When I was unhooded, my yoke had been chained to the wall of a dungeon.

The place was lit by a small, foul tharlarion lamp set in the wall near the ceiling. I had no idea how far below ground it might be. The floor and the walls were of black stone, quarried in giant blocks of perhaps a tone apiece. The lamp dried the stone in its vicinity, but, on the floor and most of the walls, there was a dampness and the smell of mold. Some straw was scattered on the floor. From where I was chained, I could reach a cistern of water. A food pan lay near my foot.

Exhausted, my body aching from the weight of the yoke and the sting of tha lash, I lay on the stones and slept. How long I slept I didn't know. When I awoke, each of my muscles ached, but now it was a dull, cold ache. I tried to move and my wounds tortured me.

In spite of the yoke I struggled to a cross-legged sitting position, and shook my head. In the food pan I saw half a loaf of coarse bread. Yoked as I was, there was no way to pick it up and get it to my mouth. I might crawl to it on my belly, and if my hunger were great enough, I knew I must, but the thought angered me. The yoke was not simply a device to secure a man, but to humiliate him, to treat him as if he were a beast.

“Let me help you,” said a girl's voice.

I turned, the momentum of the yoke almost carrying me into the wall. Two small hands caught it, and struggling, managed to swing it back, keeping my balance.

I looked at the girl. Perhaps she was plain, but I found her attractive. There was a warmth in her I would not have expected to find in Tharna. Her dark eyes regarded me, filled with concern. Her hair, which was reddish brown, was bound behind her head with a coarse string.

As I gazed on her she lowered her eyes shyly. She wore only a single garment, a long, narrow rectangle of rough, brown material, perhaps eighteen inches in width, drawn over her head like a poncho, falling in front and back a bit above her knees and belted at the waist with a chain.

“Yes,” she said with shame. “I wear the camisk.”

“You are lovely,” I said.

She looked at me, startled, yet grateful.

We faced each other in the half darkness of the dungeon, not speaking. There was no sound in that dark, cold place. The shadows of the tiny tharlarion lamp far above flickered on the walls, on the face of the girl.

Her hand reached out and touched the silver yoke I wore. “They are cruel,” she said.

Then, without speaking more, she picked up the bread from the pan, and held it for me. I bit two or three voracious mouthfuls of the coarse stuff and chewed it and gulped it down.

I noted her throat was encircled by a collar of grey metal. I supposed it indicated that she was a state slave of Tharna.

She reached into the cistern, first scraping the surface of the water to clear it of the green scum that floated there, and then, in the palms of her cupped hands, carried water to my parched lips.

“Thank you,” I said.

She smiled at me. “One does not thank a slave,” she said.

“I thought women were free in Tharna,” I said, gesturing with my head toward the grey metal collar she wore.

“I will not be kept in Tharna,” she said. “I will be sent from the city, to the Great Farms, where I will carry water to Field Slaves.”

“What is your crime?” I asked.

“I betrayed Tharna,” she said.

“You conspired against the throne?” I asked.

“No,” said the girl. “I cared for a man.”

I was speechless.

“I once wore the silver mask, Warrior,” said the girl. “But now I am only a Degraded Woman, for I allowed myself to love.”

“That is no crime,” I said.

The girl laughed merrily. I love to hear the sudden glad music of a woman's laughter, that laughter that so delights a man, that acts on his senses like Ka-la-na wine.

Suddenly it seemed I no longer felt the weight of the yoke.

“Tell me about him,” I said, “but first tell me your name.”

“I am Linna of Tharna,” she said. “What is your name?”

“Tarl,” I said.

“Of what city?”

“Of no city.”

“Ah!” said the girl, smiling, and inquired no further. She would have concluded that she shared her cell with an outlaw. She sat back on her heels, her eyes happy. “He was,” she said, “not even of this city.”

I whistled. That would be a serious matter in Gorean eyes.

“And worse than that,” she laughed, clapping her hands, “he was of the Caste of Singers.”

It could have been worse, I thought. After all, though the Caste of Singers, or Poets, was not a high caste, it had more prestige than, for example, the Caste of Pot-Makers or Saddle-Makers, with which it was sometimes compared. On Gor, the singer, or poet, is regarded as a craftsman who makes strong sayings, much like a pot-maker makes a good pot or a saddle-maker makes a worthy saddle. He has his role to play in the social structure, celebrating battles and histories, singing of heroes and cities, but also he is expected to sing of living, and of love and joy, not merely of arms and glory; and, too, it is his function to remind the Goreans from time to time of loneliness and death, lest they should forget that they are men.

The singer was thought to have an unusual skill, but so, too, were the tarn-keeper and the woodsman. Poets on Gor, as in my native world, were regarded with some skepticism and thought to be a little foolish, but it had not occurred to anyone that they might suffer from divine madness or be the periodic recipients of the inspiration of the gods. The Priest-Kings of Gor, who served as the divinities of this rude planet, inspired little but awe, and occasionally fear. Men lived in a truce with the Priest-Kings, keeping their laws and festivals, making the required sacrifices and libations, but, on the whole, forgetting about them as much as possible. Had it been suggested to a poet that he had been inspired by a Priest-King the fellow would have been scandalised. “I, So-an-So of Such-and-Such a City, made this song,” he would say, “not a Priest-King.”

In spite of some reservations the Poet, or Singer, was loved on Gor. It had not occurred to him that he owed misery and torment to his profession, and, on the whole, the Caste of Poets was thought to be a most happy band of men. “A handful of bread for a song,” was a common Gorean invitation extended to members of the caste, and it might occur on the lips of a peasant or a Ubar, and the poet took great pride that he would sing the same song in both the hut of the peasant and the halls of the Ubar, though it won for him only a crust of bread in one place and a cap of gold in the other, gold often squandered on a beautiful woman who might leave him nothing but his songs.

Poets, on the whole, did not live well on Gor, but they never starved, were never forced to burn the robes of their caste. Some had even sung their way from city to city, their poverty protecting them from outlaws, and their luck from the predatory beasts of Gor. Nine cities, long after his death, claimed the man who, centuries ago, had called Ko-ro-ba the Towers of the Morning.