by John Norman
“Is the knife not a more likely weapon for an assassin?” I said. “Consider how easily it is concealed and how, well flung, it greets its target.”
I put the knife in my belt. I would have preferred a Tuchuk quiva, for its weight and balance, but one must make do with what may be at hand.
“This,” I said, “is my plan.”
* * *
“Demon rider!” said Lord Akio, rising to his feet, spilling tea.
Two contract women cowered in the background.
“Make no sound,” I said. “In two steps I could be at your throat.”
He glanced to the contract women.
“They will remain where they are,” I said, “or your throat is mine.”
“Remain,” he said to the two women.
“You should be better guarded,” I said. “Where are your men, out searching for Tarl Cabot, or lying in wait, within or outside a nearby tent?”
“There are guards,” he said, “outside. Did you not see the banner of the camp lord?”
“Perhaps by morning,” I said, “there will be a new camp lord.”
“How did you get in?” he said.
“In the same fashion you expected one to enter the tent of Tajima, the tarnsman prisoner, by cutting the back of the tent. How easy and inviting you made such an entrance appear. You did not anticipate this. If you had, you might have invested fewer guards in your other plans.”
The tent of the camp lord, incidentally, was not a simple tent, but a large tent, lavish and well-appointed, one containing several rooms, or joined apartments. Although it had rained heavily outside, earlier in the night, it was nicely dry within. It was lit by a number of hanging lamps.
He looked down, quickly, a darting glance to the other side.
“You would not have time to reach the war fan,” I said.
“You would give up your friend, the tarnsman?” he said.
“Who would not, in kaissa,” I said, “sacrifice a Spearman for a Ubar?”
“I do not understand,” he said.
“Who would not, in a dark game, sacrifice a lesser piece for one of greater value?”
“You are more astute in the ways of statecraft than I had realized,” he said.
“One learns from masters,” I said.
“What have you come to do?” he said.
“Leave the companion sword as it is, lying by the table,” I said. “Do not place your right hand in your left sleeve.”
“What do you want?”
“Your head,” I said. “Lord Temmu would prize it. His women would carefully wash and clean it, comb and perfume its hair, blacken its teeth, and mount it in a place of honor.”
“Perhaps we can talk,” he said. “There are diamonds, gold, silver, jade, women.”
“I have not come here for such things,” I said.
“Do not approach!” he said, backing away.
“I congratulate you on your present attire,” I said. “It does credit to your wardrobe. Doubtless you would be distressed, if it were to be stained, to run with blood.”
“Come no closer!” he said.
I could have reached out and touched him.
“I am prepared to bargain,” he said. “I will give the prisoner to you and you may leave the camp with impunity.”
“Lord Yamada,” I said, “would not allow you to surrender the prisoner.”
“The great lord,” said Lord Akio, “does not know he is my prisoner.”
“Why not?” I asked.
“I wish to surprise him,” said Lord Akio.
“Lord Yamada,” I said, “does not like surprises. He would expect you to have surrendered the prisoner instantly.”
“Lord Yamada,” he said, “may not always be shogun.”
“At a supper,” I said, “an assassin was foiled in the attempt to kill the great lord. His shoulder bore the false sign of a lotus. Before he could be interrogated, presumably under torture, which few men can withstand, you slew him, a knife to the back of the neck.”
“It was regrettable,” he said, “a sudden, thoughtless act, which, in the moment, I could not help, an act expressing my horror, my indignation, my outrage, at the attempt on the life of my beloved shogun.”
“That you did not immediately present Tajima, the tarnsman, to the shogun suggests you were holding him for a purpose, perhaps that he might later figure in a staged capture, redounding to your benefit. That you did not immediately return the shogun’s daughter to him, and his justice, might serve a similar purpose, or perhaps, more likely, while it might be assumed or alleged that she had perished, she might be retained, her curves suggesting that she might prove of slave interest.”
“Do not kill me,” he said.
“You offered to free the tarnsman and guarantee us safe passage from the camp?” I said.
“Yes,” he said. “Yes, surely yes!”
“How do I know you will do so?” I asked, as though considering the matter.
“You have my word,” he said.
“Should I trust you?” I asked.
“Of course,” he said. “You have my word, the word of a warrior, of a daimyo.”
“Very well,” I said. “I will trust you.”
“Permit me to withdraw, to arrange the matter,” he said, backing cautiously away.
“It will not take long?” I said.
“Not at all,” he said. “Only a few moments. You will wait here, will you not?”
“Certainly,” I said.
“Perhaps you will have some tea while you wait,” he said.
“I have your word?”
“Of course,” he said.
As soon as Lord Akio had left this compartment, or portion, of the long, large tent, I turned to the contract women. “Leave, ladies,” I said. “I have no time for tea. I must be about burning a tent.”
I had hardly said this when, from a few yards away, some canvases separating us, I heard Lord Akio crying out, screaming wildly, “Guards, guard, guards!”
I then withdrew, swiftly, stopping only long enough to scatter oil from four or five of the lamps I passed, igniting the spillage. The interior of the tent was protected by layers of canvas from the outside, and weather, and, with its furnishings, its mats, chests, screens, and such, would burn splendidly. As soon as I emerged in the early morning light from the slit I had made in the canvas, I cut several of the tent ropes. The guards, as I had surmised, large numbers of them, would be arrested in their pursuit by the flames, and further discomfited when the roof’s layered canvases, those in this portion of the tent, the ropes cut, would collapse. Once finished I no longer hurried, but walked slowly about, and even stopped, for a time, with several others, to watch the steam rise from the damp, collapsed canvas, this generated by the heat from within.
* * *
“So where is Tajima?” I said. “We must be on our way.”
“I do not know,” said Pertinax.
“I do not understand,” I said.
“The guards were drawn away,” said Pertinax. “There must have been forty or fifty of them. They seemed to spring from everywhere.”
“It seems there was an emergency,” said Ichiro. “They hurried to the tent of the camp lord.”
“This presented us with our awaited opportunity,” said Pertinax. “The prison tent abandoned, left unguarded, we cut the canvas in the back, reached Tajima, severed his bonds, and drew him forth.”
“So where is he?” I asked.
“I do not know!” said Pertinax.
“There was a fire, too,” said Ichiro.
“I know,” I said.
“Tajima said he had an errand to attend to,” said Pertinax.
“He does not even know where Nezumi is,” I said. “I do not know. Haruki is trying to determine the matter. We are to rendezvous with him, in the vicinity of the tent of the shogun.”
“Is that not conspicuous, Commander san?” said Ichiro.
“Where better to conceal an object,” I asked
, “than to place it where seekers will not look?”
“We have not long to wait,” said Pertinax. “Tajima approaches.”
“Where have you been?” I asked.
“Attending to a matter,” said Tajima.
“I see no little beast, closely collared, heeling you,” I said.
“Do you refer to the small, collared beast, Nezumi?” he asked.
“It is possible,” I said.
“How could it be?” he asked. “I do not even know where she is.”
“What then was the matter to which you wished to attend?” I asked.
“It is not important,” he said.
“The alarm bar is still ringing,” said Pertinax.
“It has to do with an escape from the prison pen,” I said to Tajima.
“It is strange that it should still be ringing,” said Pertinax.
“Perhaps, not,” said Tajima.
“How so?” asked Pertinax.
“Another escaped,” said Tajima, “more recently.”
“I did not know that,” I said.
“Arashi,” said Tajima.
“How do you know that?” I asked.
“I freed him,” said Tajima.
“He is a blood-thirsty rogue, and cutthroat,” I said.
“But likable,” said Tajima.
“At the inn,” I said, “he would have killed you.”
“But not in a mean-spirited way,” said Tajima, “only as a matter of expedience.”
“Still,” I said.
“One must not be petty,” said Tajima.
“Why not release a mad sleen instead,” I said. “Because there was no mad sleen at hand?”
“Arashi,” said Tajima, “is a bandit, a brigand, a villain, and such, but he is also a leader, a firebrand, a hero amongst many in the villages.”
“I see,” I said.
“He would be a dangerous enemy,” said Tajima. “I would rather have him as an ally.”
“He is a brigand,” I said. “Arashi is the ally only of Arashi.”
“What if the peasants should rise?” asked Tajima.
“Peasants do not rise,” I said.
“True,” said Tajima. “It would be regarded as inappropriate.”
“If they should rise,” I said, “they would soon subside.”
“The river returns to its banks,” said Pertinax.
“After washing many things downstream,” said Tajima.
“You would have done better,” I said, “to have freed a mad sleen.”
“But Tarl Cabot, tarnsman,” said Tajima, “there were none at hand.”
“Haruki should be in the vicinity of the shogun’s tent,” I said.
“Let us join him,” said Tajima.
“Are you willing, dear Tajima,” I said, “to leave the camp without Nezumi?”
“No,” he said.
“Haruki may have word of her,” I said.
Chapter Forty-One
We Rendezvous;
Notes are Exchanged;
Haruki Misses his Garden
“I am pleased to see you alive, noble ones,” said Haruki.
“Probably no more than we to be so seen,” I said.
“Have you found Nezumi?” asked Tajima.
“How is that you are anxious about a slave?” asked Pertinax.
“I am not anxious,” said Tajima.
“It is just a matter of idle curiosity,” I said.
“In a way, of course,” said Tajima.
“Nonetheless, friend Haruki,” I said, “have you located the unimportant, even despicable, slave, in whom Tajima has little, or no, interest?”
We moved back a bit amongst the tents, as a squad of glaive-bearing Ashigaru, in double file, sped past.
“That is the sixth search squad dispatched into the camp while I have been here,” said Haruki.
“There were doubtless others before,” I said, “probably from shortly after we left the pen.”
“I suspect more are being organized,” said Pertinax.
“They will scour the camp, every hort,” said Tajima, grimly.
“They cannot scour every hort at the same time,” I said. “The point, then, is to be where they are not scouring.”
Tajima looked at me, narrowly.
“The safest way to assure that end,” I said, “is to follow the search party, wary, of course, of its turning back.”
“A single seeker, astute and suspicious, might do so,” said Haruki, “turn back, but a directed party is almost certain to have its route delineated in advance, a route from which it is unlikely to deviate, indeed, one from which it might be dangerous to deviate, given the discipline of Lord Yamada.”
“And such routes,” I said, “in the name of a misguided efficiency, would not be likely to intersect with, or duplicate, one another.”
“I think so,” said Haruki.
“Too,” I said, “considering the size of the camp, the number of fugitives, and the large number of peasants, tradesmen, craftsmen, deserters from the holding of Temmu, and such, in the camp, one might pity the search squads. Their work is likely to be arduous, confusing, and frustrating.”
“Nonetheless,” said Pertinax, “I will struggle to withhold my pity.”
“Barbarians are strange,” said Haruki.
It must not be thought odd, or unprecedented, that a large number of strangers, so to speak, would be present in a camp of this size. This was not a camp of flying columns or forced marches. Large camps, transient cities of tents, attract their multitudes, rather as a flowering meadow its cloudlike swarms of tiny, four-winged zars. Indeed, I had gathered from Pertinax and Ichiro this camp had not been moved in several days. I supposed this had something to do with logistics, given the need to acquire and store supplies for so large a force. On the other hand, it is possible that Lord Yamada’s seeming dalliance was otherwise motivated; perhaps negotiations of some sort were underway; perhaps certain pieces in his game of war were being rearranged with scrupulous care; perhaps it was merely that the advance of his might, approaching now and again with its glacial implacability, might dismay a foe, eroding morale and precipitating desertions.
“What of Nezumi?” I asked. “I am interested in that matter, even if Tajima is not.”
“First,” said Haruki, “many officers have slaves in their retinue.”
“It is unlikely,” I said, “that Nezumi would be in a particular retinue.”
“True,” said Haruki.
It was not surprising, incidentally, that a number of slaves might be in the camp. Strong men want their slaves, and, on Gor, will have them. In a war camp, free women, and even contract women, would be rare. On my former world, large camps were often accompanied by numbers of putatively free women known as “camp followers.” In Gorean camps such women would be seldom found. If such a woman were to enter a Gorean camp, given the pervasiveness of female bondage on Gor and its cultural approval, she would soon find herself in a collar and on a chain. The free woman can be a nuisance; the slave is a convenience. Who would want a free woman, when one can have a woman at one’s feet, realizing she must obey?
“I expect,” I said, “Nezumi would be concealed amongst other slaves. To have her isolated, as though she might have the status of a prisoner, perhaps a special prisoner, might excite comment, even arouse suspicion.”
“Have you found her?” demanded Tajima.
“Patience, young noble one,” said Haruki.
“Poor Tajima,” said Pertinax, I thought unnecessarily.
“Would you care to meet me in a dojo,” said Tajima, “with bamboo whips?”
“Not really,” said Pertinax. “As you are a dear friend, I would not wish to hurt you.”
“Remember, Tajima,” I said, “Pertinax and Ichiro have entered this camp and risked their lives to find you and free you.”
“What difference does that make?” asked Tajima.
“I thought it might make one,” I said, “perhaps a little one.”<
br />
“Not at all,” said Tajima.
“Very well,” I said.
“It seemed likely to me, as well,” said Haruki, “that Nezumi would be concealed amongst other slaves. There are twelve major slave enclaves in the camp.”
“Have you found her?” asked Tajima.
“Haruki will not have had time to examine twelve enclaves,” I said.
“Eight of the enclaves are slave pens,” said Haruki, “and four are slave tents.”
“Nezumi is to be concealed,” I said. “The slave pens are too open, so dismiss them.”
“I agree, noble one,” said Haruki.
Given the recent storm, the pounding rain, the drenching miseries, the cold, and such, I thought it might have done Nezumi some good, helping her to learn her collar, to have been in a slave pen, but I did not think that that, for political reasons, would have been her housing.
“Have you found her?” asked Tajima.
“Yes, and no,” said Haruki.
“Perhaps you could be more clear,” I said.
“Have you found her?” pressed Tajima.
“I think so, young noble one,” said Haruki, “but I am not sure.”
“How can you not be sure?” asked Tajima.
“I made inquiries,” said Haruki, “pretending that I was inquiring for an officer, what might be the arrangements for the inspection and purchase of slaves.”
“What did you find?” I asked.
“In only three of the four tents are slaves available for public purchase,” he said.
“Then she is in the fourth tent,” I said, “that not open to the public.”
“At present,” said Haruki.
“And where is that tent?” I asked.
“It is isolated, remote, near the perimeter of the camp,” said Haruki.
“She is there,” I said.
“I did not see her, of course,” said Haruki.
“No matter,” I said. “She is there.”
“I have been told the way,” said Haruki, pointing.
“Excellent,” I said. “That is the route taken by the recent search party. We shall follow it.”
“What if it turns back?” said Pertinax.
“That is unlikely,” I said, “for it would be examining the same path twice, once going, once coming.”