Swordsmen of Gor (36 page)

“I wanted you to see the training area, and the tarns,” said Tajima. “There is little for you to do now, though you are welcome, as you wish, and whenever you wish, to visit this area. The training will continue. Also, we are awaiting the arrival of more leather for saddles and harnessing. Once we have a hundred or more men who have flighted a tarn and lived, we will begin a more disciplined endeavor, and will try to form riders, with such skills as they will then have, into prides, which you may then form into a cavalry.”

The expression ‘pride’, in this context, was a metaphor, of sorts, taken from the usual grouping of larls, such a group being commonly called a pride. The term is Gorean, but, like a great many terms in Gorean, not surprisingly, given the voyages of acquisition, it is taken from another language, in this case, English.

“I am anxious to begin work,” I said. I had considered, for a long time, possible innovations in the tactics of tarn attack, and the armament of riders. Too long, in my view, had the common tarnsman been too much of a mounted foot soldier, too long had he been the passenger of the mount, rather than a component in a single, unified weapon. An analogy, though quite imperfect, might have been the early transition from cavalry as a supportive arm, used to reconnoiter, harass, and ride down stragglers, to a central arm, a shock arm, of stirruped lancers fit to strike, split and disrupt serried ranks. The latter role on Gor, of course, belonged to war tharlarion. But I thought much might be done with tarn cavalries. For example, it seemed to me that much might be learned from the almost evanescent appearing and disappearing of Tuchuk cavalry. Too, the usual missile weapon of the tarnsman, as the longbow, or peasant bow, was impractical, was the crossbow, but it was difficult to reload from the saddle, and its rate of fire, accordingly, was slow. Usually one quarrel would be discharged, and then the crossbowman was well advised to withdraw from action until it was possible to ratchet back the cable for another load, or, if a foot stirrup was used, which was quicker, but gave less power, to haul it back with two hands, get it over the catch, and then, with an additional operation, set another missile in the guide. In either case, the rate of fire was, in my view, prohibitedly slow.

“I am pleased,” said Tajima. “So, too, I am sure, will be Lord Nishida.”

“I must speak to him soon,” I said, “for there is much to be done.”

“What of the riders?” asked Tajima.

“We do not know, now, who will be the riders,” I said, “who will survive the training.”

“True,” said Tajima. “And I fear the larls will have much hunting to do.”

“When the riders are well asaddle,” I said, “I will speak to them, but not before.”

“So it will be,” said Tajima.

I was then prepared to leave the plaza, but, in turning about, I saw a sight which, to me, if not to Tajima, and his people, seemed exceedingly odd.

“What is going on there?” I asked.

“One is preparing to recover his honor,” said Tajima.

On a small platform, in a white kimono, one of Tajima’s people, which I will now refer to as the Pani, as that is their word for themselves, knelt. His head was bowed, and before him, on the platform, was a curved wooden sheath, which contained, doubtless, a knife. Near the fellow, also clad in a rather formal kimono, white, stood a fellow with an unsheathed sword, of the longer sort.

“Do not intrude,” said Tajima.

“What is the fellow with the sword doing?” I asked.

“It is sometimes difficult to perform the act,” said Tajima. “If it cannot be well completed the swordsman will assist. There is no loss of honor in that.”

“Stop!” I called.

“Do not interfere!” cried Tajima, whose suave placidity was for once not at his disposal.

I thrust Tajima back and strode to the figure on the platform, who had now loosened his robe and drawn forth a small dagger from the sheath.

The man with the sword stood to one side, two hands on the hilt of the weapon. He regarded me. He did not seem resentful, outraged, or such. Rather, he seemed puzzled. He had not expected this intrusion, nor had the fellow on the platform.

The fellow on the platform gripped the knife. I thought blood had drained from his hand. He looked up, not fully comprehending this disruption. He had already, I understood, given himself to the knife, and all that remained now was to finish the deed.

“Allow him dignity!” begged Tajima.

“I will not allow this,” I said.

“Who are you to stop it?” asked Tajima, once again in command of his emotions. The Pani are an extremely emotional, passionate race, as I would learn, and the calmness of their exterior demeanor, their frequently seeming impassibility, even seeming apathy, was less of a disposition than an achievement.

Civility is not an adornment, but a necessity. Is the beast not always at one’s elbow? Behind the facade of a painted screen a larl may lurk. Every chain can snap, every rope break. Savagery lies close to the precincts of civilization. The borderland between them is narrow and easily traversed. Courtesy, or politeness, you see, must not always be understood as a lack, a debility, or insufficiency. One must not recklessly part curtains. Behind them might be found things you would just as soon not see. He who writes poetry and sips tea, and waits expectantly for a flower to blossom, may, in a frenzy, on the field of battle, take head after head.

In any event, it is unwise to take mountains for granted. They may conceal volcanoes.

“I am commander, I am captain,” I told Tajima.

“This man is a coward,” said Tajima.

“No,” I said, “he is not.”

It seemed to me that the act he contemplated was sufficient evidence of that.

“He fled from a tarn,” said Tajima.

“He will not do so again,” I said.

“Do not interfere,” said Tajima. “You can make no difference. He will simply complete the act later, when you are not present.”

“No, he will not,” I said.

“Why not?” asked Tajima, genuinely interested.

“Because I forbid it,” I said. “I will have no more of this amongst men who will dare the tarn.”

“It is our way,” said Tajima.

“Who is captain?” I asked.

“You, Tarl Cabot, tarnsman,” said Tajima.

“It is not my way,” I said.

“You are captain,” said Tajima, quietly.

“I will not lose men in this fashion,” I said.

“It is better to lose such men,” said Tajima.

“If you want to die,” I said to the kneeling figure on the platform, “do so under the talons of the tarn.”

“It is wrong for you to interfere in this, Tarl Cabot, tarnsman,” said Tajima. “One must recover honor.”

“One recovers honor in life,” I said, “not in death. If he lives, he may begin again, and gain honor.”

“That is not our way,” said Tajima.

“But it is a way,” I said.

“Doubtless,” said Tajima.

“And it is my way,” I said.

“Yes,” said Tajima. “It is your way.”

“And I am captain,” I said.

“Yes,” said Tajima. “You are captain.”

“Return to your training,” I told the fellow kneeling on the platform. “You are late.”

“Yes, Captain San,” he said.

Stumbling, shaken, he made his way toward the barracks.

“I will see that your views on this matter are conveyed to all,” said Tajima.

I then bowed to the fellow with the sword. “Thank you for your attendance,” I said to him, “but your honorable assistance is no longer required.”

He returned my bow, sheathed the sword, and left.

“This pertains only to your command, you understand,” said Tajima.

“At least now,” I said, “you have something interesting to report to Lord Nishida.”

“That is true,” smiled Tajima.

Chapter Thirteen

I SEEK INFORMATION IN THE SLAVE HOUSE

It was night.

I entered the slave house and received a lighted taper and a switch.

Others, similarly accoutered, were in the slave house, as well, perhaps seven or eight. The house was more than a hundred feet long, and built of thick logs, with a roof of branches and thatch. The structure was some twenty feet in width, and windowless. Its ceiling was some eight feet from the flooring. On each side there were aligned some twenty-five to thirty mats. These mats were some three to four inches in thickness, and something like a yard wide. They were sewn of heavy, striped canvas, and stuffed with straw. When I had entered I heard tiny sounds in the darkness, whimperings, small noises of fear, here and there the movement of a body on the straw-filled mat, the rustle of a chain.

I was interested in a particular slave.

I moved slowly down the aisle, lifting the taper first to the left, and then the right.

Each slave was chained by the neck, to a ring anchored in the floor, to the left of her mat, as she would look toward the aisle. Each had some four feet of chain.

As I lifted the taper one slave, kneeling, head down, crouched down, and tried to cover herself.

Surely she knew that was not permitted.

I did not strike her.

Another lay on her side and drew up her legs, and, bent at the waist, held her arms, too, tightly, frightened, about her.

That, too, was not permitted.

Nor did I strike her.

Both were dismayed, and terrified. I gathered they had not been long on the mats.

Torgus, the mercenary leader whom I had met on the beach earlier, had rented some of these, former high women of Ar, to the house.

I had ascertained those he had sold, either to the loggers, or craftsmen, or suppliers, or trainers, and such, or to the Pani themselves, and she whom I sought was not amongst those.

Accordingly I sought her here.

Several of the mats were empty, but I conjectured there might be some sixty or so girls in the house.

I lifted the taper again.

A girl, illuminated, but much in shadows, too, shrank back, half kneeling, half lying.

“Do not be afraid,” I told her, and went on.

Surely several of these were new to the mats, unfamiliar with being illuminated in the darkness by tapers, fearful of the chain on their necks, wary of the switches of masters, women who knew themselves no longer free but did not yet fully understand what it was to be a slave, an understanding which would be soon and perfectly achieved.

She whom I sought, and had considered buying for Pertinax, was she whom I had noted on the chain of Torgus, on the beach, kneeling with others, neck-chained, in the surf and sand, she who had seemed most ready or needful, she whom I thought would be the first to plead for a man’s touch. Sometimes a woman’s igniting ensues as soon as she feels a collar put on her neck, one she cannot remove. Other times it may be a thing as simple as stripping her and binding her wrists behind her body. Sometimes it may be as simple as finding herself slave-naked, on her knees, before a man. Sometimes it may be when she first licks and kisses the feet of a man, when she feels the weight of a chain on her body, and so on. These things in themselves, interestingly, are often no more than keys which open a door which has long imprisoned a distressed and yearning slave. She has in her heart desired to be taken, owned, and mastered. She has never been more free than when most his.

I lifted the taper again, and one of the slaves scrambled, frightened, to her knees, and put her head to the mat, assuming first obeisance position. Her hair seemed sweaty. There were welts on her back.

Her response was in the vicinity of what was expected of her, but was not what it should have been.

When the slave is illuminated, she is to display herself as provocatively as possible. This can vary from girl to girl. Many are the suitable posings of the female slave. Indeed when a woman is put through slave paces, whether leashed or not, what is this but an exhibition, a detailed and sometimes tormentingly lovely display of property? If the fellow with the taper lingers, or seems interested, she then goes to first obeisance position, and begs to be found pleasing. Interestingly there was no coin box on the necks of the slaves, as would be the case with “coin girls” in some cities, usually port cities, or coin dishes beside the mat, as in great camps, and such, in which coins might be left by clients or patrons. Indeed, I had not even given a tarsk bit at the entrance. These slaves were furnished as a perquisite of the camp, to content the men who might not have their own slave or slaves. The rent money given to Torgus for his girls then, as with others, was furnished by the Pani, rather as they might have underwritten other forms of expense, clothing, bedding, housing, tools, weapons, food, ka-la-na, paga, kal-da, and such.

I continued on my way.

She whom I sought, I had learned, upon inquiries, was the former Lady Portia Lia Serisia of Sun Gate Towers, an exclusive district, near Ar’s Street of Coins, where were found most of the banking houses of the city. The name of the enclave was derived from the Sun Gate, one of Ar’s major gates, though it was better than two pasangs from the gate itself, the gate’s name being derived from the fact that it was regularly opened at sunrise and closed at sunset. Many of the larger merchant enclaves were found near the walls, within which were several warehouses. This is convenient for the receipt of goods coming into the city, and for those being sent from the city. Caravans are usually formed outside the walls. Goods from these warehouses, of course, are often later distributed for retailing throughout the city. The Lady Serisia, as we may say for short, was a scion of the Serisii, one of Ar’s older banking families. It was predominantly wiped out in the rising, it seems, for its collaboration with the occupational forces, its extending of credit to them, to meet its payrolls, when the funds for these failed somehow to reach the city, its purchases of great quantities of loot, including women, for later retailing elsewhere, its arranging for the confiscation of rival house’s assets, and so on. For a time it had become the wealthiest and most powerful house in Ar, but then had come the rising. The Lady Serisia, I suspected, might be the last surviving member of the house. Proscription lists tend to be exacting, and Gorean justice, which tends to be expeditious and efficient, tends to pursue such matters with diligence. I did not doubt but what many a profiteer, traitor, and such, burdened impaling stakes within Ahn of the rising. Free women take part in the commercial life of Gorean polities as men do, owning and managing businesses, lending coin, negotiating loans, organizing caravans, investing capital, conservatively, or risking it variously, in real estate, voyages, commodities, and such, in translating goods about to find the most favorable markets at a given time, and so on. To be sure, much of this is done through male agents, as, in theory, such concerns are regarded as beneath the dignity and attention of a free woman. She is supposedly, in her dignity and nobility, above such crass concerns. That she exists, in the glory of her freedom, that she is so different from the shameful female slave, that she adds luster to the city and its Home Stone, is enough; that she be dedicated to refined and tasteful pursuits, such as attendance at the theater, at song dramas, poetry readings, and such, is deemed sufficient. In essence, the free woman, aside from being regarded as a priceless treasure, so different from the slave who, as a beast, may be purchased for a given amount of coin, is considered an ornament to the city, an adornment to her polity. But many grow wealthy and powerful, and others fail, and so on.