Swordsmen of Gor (34 page)

“What am I offered?” I asked.

“I shall endeavor to be so good on the blanket,” she said, “that you would have no desire to sell me!”

“You do fit well in my arms,” I said, “and you do have a luscious cubic content, and you moan and squirm well.”

“I cannot help such things, Master,” she said.

“Nor should you,” I said.

“No, Master,” she said. “Master.”

“Yes?” I said.

“Tomorrow,” she said, “may I seek out Master Pertinax, and inform him of the petition of a stable slave?”

Pertinax was currently housed in one of the barracks occupied by the loggers.

“You will wait three days,” I said.

“Master!” she protested.

“Three days,” I said.

“Yes, Master,” she said.

“Give her some days to fear,” I said, “that you have forgotten, or were forbidden to contact Pertinax, or that he, informed of the petition, chose to ignore it. Let her ponder such possibilities, and others.”

“But she will be tormented, will be in misery,” said Cecily.

“Yes,” I said.

“Is it not time we bathed?” I asked.

“Yes,” she said. “The stable was terrible.”

“Commonly,” I said, “the bondage of the stable is not miserable, or dreadful, as the stable girls have proper tools for their work, and such. To be sure, it is common for them to have their heads shaved, or their hair cropped, for reasons of sanitation. There are many worse slaveries on Gor. To be sure, undeniably, it is a low slavery, and slaves, in the ways of females, will do much, as they can, to obtain for themselves a lighter and more pleasant bondage.”

“Surely you do not blame us,” she said.

“Of course not,” I said.

“I hope to be found pleasing on the blanket,” she said.

“I am sure you will be,” I said.

“I do not wish to be lashed,” she said.

“I am sure you will not be,” I said.

“And afterwards, what is to be done with me, Master?” she inquired.

“You will be chained for the night,” I said, “at my feet.”

“Yes, Master,” she said.

Chapter Twelve

THE PLAZA OF TRAINING

“You have trainers?” I asked Tajima.

“Several,” he said, “who brought the tarns from Thentis, some from elsewhere.”

Thentis was famed for her tarn flocks.

“I am not a tarn trainer,” I told him.

We were walking within a path, leading from the logging camp deeper into the forest. The path was lined with wands, on each side, and the guard larls, which were occasionally seen, would not intrude within the wands.

“No,” said Tajima, “you are a rider, and a warrior.”

“My role here, I am given to understand, is to form and discipline a tarn cavalry,” I said.

At that moment, from afar off, perhaps two hundred to two hundred and fifty yards to our right and ahead, there was a terrible roar, surely of a larl, followed, a moment later, by a harrowing scream.

Tajima seized my arm. “No!” he said. “Do not depart from the wands!”

“Help is needed!” I said, pulling away.

“No,” said Tajima. “It is no longer needed. The kill has taken place. Do not disturb a larl when it is feeding.”

“Someone was beyond the wands,” I said.

“Now, and again,” said Tajima, “some will flee the camp.”

The roar of the larl commonly startles and freezes the prey. Then the larl is upon it.

“The camp, I gather, is not to be fled?”

“No,” said Tajima, “it is not permitted.”

“Why do men flee the camp?” I asked.

“They are afraid,” said Tajima. “They do not wish to die, and then they flee, and then they die.”

“There are secrets here, too,” I said, “and men might flee, to make them known, to sell them.”

“That, too,” said Tajima.

“A perilous endeavor,” I remarked.

“True,” said Tajima.

Those brought to Tarncamp were, I had gathered from Pertinax, mercenaries, bandits, brigands, thieves, murderers, wanderers, low men, cast-off men, men lost from Home Stones, and such. Many, I understood, had come from the occupational forces now expelled from Ar. The word of such men might be as the rustle of the wind amidst leech plants. Their loyalties would on the whole be to their own hides and purses. They would on the whole be as much for hire as the Assassins, save that the Assassin, once the dagger has been painted on his forehead, signaling he is hunting, is loyal to a fee.

“Why do you and your people wish a tarn cavalry?” I asked.

“For purposes of war, of course,” said Tajima.

“On continental Gor?” I inquired.

“Elsewhere,” said Tajima.

This made sense to me, as whatever might be afoot in the forest would not be likely to be of sufficient size and potency to effect much success against Gorean cities with their own tarn forces, which might number in the hundreds and, as of old, in Ar, in their thousands. Similarly it seemed that formidable island ubarates such as Tyros and Cos would have little to fear from, say, a squadron of bandit tarnsmen. And would one not require the means to reach those sovereignties, which lay hundreds of pasangs to the west? The tarn is a land bird, and will not fly beyond the sight of land. And even if the tarn could do that, no tarn could make that flight, but would fall exhausted into the sea. They are not sea birds which can rest on the wind, aloft for Ahn, wings spread, not moving, and, if they wished, descend, and rest on the sea itself.

“Where?” I asked.

“Elsewhere,” said Tajima, politely.

“Your forces,” I said to Tajima, “seem to have means. Why do you not hire a tarn cavalry from another city, say, Treve, in the Voltai?”

“Such a cavalry,” said Tajima, “would be theirs, not ours. Also, how could such a hiring be concealed?”

“I understand you have lost men,” I said.

“We have lost twenty-two men,” he said, “to the talons and beaks of tarns, some of them trainers.”

“Then you are dealing with wild tarns,” I said. Such losses would not be expected with the training of domestic tarns.

“Yes,” said Tajima, “but from the vicinity of Thentis, from the mountains of Thentis. Any purchase of a considerable number of tarns from the cots would surely attract attention.”

“Doubtless,” I said.

Wild tarns are common in the mountains of Thentis.

“Four of my people,” said Tajima, “fled back from the tarns, and two found they could not approach them.”

“That is understandable,” I said.

“But not acceptable,” said Tajima. “But each has regained his honor.”

“I do not see how honor is involved in this sort of thing,” I said, “courage perhaps, but how honor?”

“For us, honor is involved,” said Tajima. “But do not fear, for they have regained their honor.”

“How?” I asked.

“By the knife,” he said.

We then heard the scream of a tarn, from a hundred or so yards before us.

“We are near the place of training,” said Tajima.

****

“I would now speak, if I might,” I had said in the pavilion.

“Surely,” had said Lord Nishida.

“I am grateful, great lord,” said I, “for your hospitality. But I understand little of what is going on here. I have been brought to you at what must be considerable time and expense. Agents, or operatives, have colluded in my presence here. I would like to know what I am to do, how it is that I might serve you.”

“You are here,” said the blond fellow to me, “as I suppose you know, in the service of Priest-Kings, the gods of Gor. We will speak their will, and you will obey.”

“You are then,” I said, “the agent of Priest-Kings?”

“Yes,” he said.

“Indeed,” I said, “you must be the agent of Priest-Kings. How could it be otherwise, for I was disembarked on the northern coast according to the exact coordinates of Priest-Kings, secret coordinates doubtless, was there met by two agents, doubtless also in the service of Priest-Kings, though that apparently unknown to them, was conducted to a reserve of Port Kar, and was there contacted by Tajima, servitor to Lord Nishida, and brought hither.”

“Certainly,” said Thrasilicus.

Lord Nishida seemed to smile, slightly.

I doubted that either Thrasilicus or Lord Nishida believed me to suppose they truly labored for Priest-Kings, but it did not seem judicious to them, obviously, to express doubt as to my convictions in this matter, nor did it seem judicious to me to challenge their claim, or, perhaps better, that of Thrasilicus, for Lord Nishida had never proclaimed that thesis, nor, as far as I could tell, did he care what I might believe in this matter.

Both would presumably be aware that the coordinates had been supplied to Kurii on the Steel World, formerly that of “Agamemnon,” later that of “Arcesilaus,” by Priest-Kings, and that, accordingly, some Kurii, at least, perhaps unauthorized Kurii, despite the supposed confidentiality of the matter, might have had access to them. Expressions, incidentally, such as “Agamemnon” and “Arcesilaus” are used for convenience, as the actual names, being in Kur, cannot be rendered in the phonemes of either English or Gorean. The two names given were used by humans on the Steel World in question to refer to the individuals involved. I have retained the usage.

I gathered it did not make a great deal of difference to either Thrasilicus or Lord Nishida whether I took them, in fact, to be laboring in the cause of Priest-Kings or not.

Too, why should they believe, in the first place, that I would wish to labor on behalf of Priest-Kings?

Surely I had not been treated well by Priest-Kings.

But if it did not matter to them, what I believed in this matter, why would it not matter to them?

I recalled that the former Miss Wentworth had said that there was a hold over me, which had something to do with a woman. This had not, however, been made clear to me, nor would it be, I supposed, unless I proved hesitant or uncooperative. The hold, I was sure, had naught to do with the slave, Cecily, who would be discounted, first as she was a slave, and, secondly, they presumably would not have known that I would bring her to Gor, in her collar, heeling me. I did know that Priest-Kings had wished me debouched on the beach at the designated coordinates, and so they would have had something in mind for me, but what I did not know. Perhaps I could discern it, if only indirectly, if I continued to accommodate myself to the wishes of Thrasilicus and Lord Nishida. Thrasilicus, in my view, clearly, was laboring on behalf of Kurii. He was obviously associated with certain Gorean slavers who had access to the shores of Earth. The ships of such slavers were furnished currently, or originally, as the case might be, by the Steel Worlds, as the sophisticated technologies involved would be far beyond that of Gorean humans, and, currently, at least, beyond those of Earth, who were not even subjected to the weapon and technology laws of Priest-Kings, concerned to protect themselves and their world from the ignorance, cunning, and rapacity of what they regarded, with considerable justification, as an inferior species. Freedom, obviously, is not an absolute value, as only fools could believe. Freedom for what is an obvious consideration. Children should not be permitted to romp on the high bridges. Tharlarion should not be permitted to trample cultivated fields. Slaves should not be permitted to wear the garments of a free woman, and so on. Ships from the Steel Worlds might be crewed by either humans or Kurii, but, I supposed, seldom would the crews be mixed. Kurii tend to be powerful, short-tempered, dangerous beasts. I personally would not care to share confined spaces with them for days at a time. I supposed much of the business of Kurii on both Gor and Earth would be conducted, for obvious reasons, by their humans. An obvious inducement, or partial inducement, to certain Goreans, for example to certain members of the caste of slavers, for their assistance, in a variety of tasks, would be something all males understand, women. On Gor, women, that is, slaves, are negotiable items of value, a currency of sorts. Indeed, on Gor a salary may be paid in women. Sometimes a fellow’s wages may be two slaves, or three. The women of Earth, unlike Gorean women, who tend to be zealously protected, are largely undefended and easily obtained. They are much like wild fruit which may be picked as one pleases, for personal use, for marketing, and such. Accordingly, access to the women of Earth, slave fruit, ripe for harvesting, is a not negligible emolument for Goreans, whose views of women tend to be less romantic than sexual and utilitarian. Indeed, one of the surprises to many Earth women brought to Gor for the sales cages of slavers is to learn that on this world they are not viewed through clouds of misrepresentation and nonsense but, radically and profoundly, as what they are, basically and fundamentally, females. Too, if they are slaves, they will learn that such a thing as males exist, males in a rather different sense from that to which they were accustomed on Earth, and that they will be owned by these males, very different sorts of males, who will be their masters, as much or more so as if they were, say, pigs or dogs. Interestingly, it seems that not every ship which plies the slave routes between Earth and Gor is in the service of Kurii. A goodly number, it seems, perhaps the majority of them, are now independent, doing their own scouting, maintaining their own acquisition lists, and so on. These commonly, it seems, sustain their own bases, on Earth or Gor. I had no doubt, however, that Thrasilicus was closely associated with Kurii.

A normal Gorean slaver, for example, commonly harvests his slave fruit, brings it to Gor, brands and collars it, pens it, gives it some training, that it not be slain the first night off the platform, and then sells it. He would not be involved in the complex arrangements which had surrounded the arrival of Miss Wentworth on Gor, her application to a particular deceit, and so on. Clearly she had been recruited as an agent of Kurii, even if she had not the least idea what Kurii might be. Then, when she had finished her task, and was no longer of use, she could be disposed of, in one way or another, usually, one supposed, in the markets. It was not surprising that female Kur agents were almost always quite beautiful. One intended to sell them later, and beautiful women tend to bring higher prices. Also, most Goreans, and Kurii, too, for that matter, despite their willingness to utilize such creatures, disapprove of liars, hypocrites, traitors, and such. Thus the fate to which the former Miss Wentworth was consigned was one intended for her from the very beginning. Sometimes such an agent, after her branding and collaring, is given to the male agent with whom she may have been associated. Usually, she is just sold in a market, commonly a low market where her sale is not likely to attract much attention. Miss Wentworth was intended, it seems, to answer to an item on a want list.