“Both Port Cos and Ar’s Station fought on the river, in terrible and bloody battles, hull to hull. After the final victory over the pirates, which took place at Victoria in 10,127 C.A., the parts of the stone came into the keeping of Calliodorus, at that time acting first captain in Port Cos, and Aemilianus, who was at that time commander of the naval forces of Ar’s Station. The pledge was renewed privately between them, I think, as comrades in arms, as Ar’s Station was not permitted by Ar to join the Vosk League.”
“Why was that?” I asked.
“I do not know,” he said. “It is speculated that Ar feared such an alliance would compromise her claims in the Vosk Basin.”
I nodded. That made sense to me. I had suspected as much earlier. The fellow, incidentally, had given the year of the aforementioned battle as 10,127 C.A. It was natural that he, of Ar’s Station, would give the date in the chronology of Ar. Different cities, perhaps in their vanity, or perhaps simply in accord with their own traditions, often have their own chronologies, based on Administrator Lists, and such. A result of this is that there is little uniformity in Gorean chronology. The same year, in the chronology of Port Kar, if it is of interest, would have been Year 8 of the Sovereignty of the Council of Captains. The reform of chronology is proposed by a small party from among the caste of scribes almost every year at the Fair of En’Kara, near the Sardar, but their proposals, sensible as they might seem, are seldom greeted with either interest or enthusiasm, even by the scribes. Perhaps that is because the reconciliation and coordination of chronologies, like the diction and convolutions of the law, are usually regarded as scribal prerogatives.
“That is the Tais,” said a fellow, pointing to the flagship of the newly arrived ships. “I would know it anywhere!” It was being moored at the pier. Its captain, who had been standing on the stern castle, issuing orders, now descended the steps, past the posts of the two helmsmen. In a moment, vaulting over the rail like a common seaman, he had disembarked. He was hatless and helmetless. A young fellow followed him. I recalled him from the audience chamber in the citadel. He was, I took it, the young warrior, Marcus. Men were cheering. Men clutched at them as they sought to make their way through the crowd. I saw them reaching out to touch even the swirling cloak of the captain. “Where is Aemilianus?” called the captain. In his hand, uplifted, about half the size of a fist, the sun catching its polished surface, was a yellowish stone, marked with brown. Men, seeing it, wept and cried out.
“Surely there are more ships there than would have been sent by Port Cos,” said a man.
“Do not speak of them,” whispered another.
His caution puzzled me.
To be sure, there must have been twenty-five ships in the outer harbor now, several of which had drawn up to the piers. On planks set out to the piers I saw women and children being ushered aboard.
I went to the inner side of the pier, that facing the inner harbor. There was a line of men there, come from the ships. They crouched there, with overlapping shields, their swords drawn. I would not have cared to essay the climb to the pier.
The captain and the young fellow, Marcus, made their way to the side of Aemilianus. He was sitting up, held by Surilius.
I stepped back a little, toward the center of the pier, that I might observe them. Then I was close to them. Men had made way for me.
The captain, whose name I had gathered was Calliodorus, he who had apparently fought long ago with Aemilianus on the river, when both were lesser officers, crouched beside him. He pressed the piece of stone he had brought with him into his hands. Aemilianus held it, tears in his eyes. Calliodorus then, as men observed, removed from his own pouch a similar stone. He then, steadying the stone in the hand of Aemilianus, who could scarcely hold it, fitted the two stones together. I was startled, for no sooner had the two pieces of stone been fitted together than it seemed there suddenly emerged, as now from a single stone, unriven, the image of a galley.
The fellow beside me was crying.
I saw a blond slave, thin and in rags, dare to crawl among the legs of free men, to lie on her stomach near Aemilianus. She put out her fingers to touch his leg. She, too, was weeping. It was she who had been called “Shirley,” whom I had seen in the audience chamber of the citadel long ago. I recalled she had been ordered to remind him to whip her the same night, for having dared to look upon me, when I had been brought in, as a prisoner. Doubtless she had done so, and had received her whipping. She lay at his side, humbly. How helplessly was she his slave! I thought she would be luscious, when fattened up, for love.
Calliodorus put the hands of Aemilianus on the stone, and placed his own hands over them. Their hands were then together, over the two joined halves of the stone, the topaz. “The pledge is redeemed,” he said.
“My thanks, Commander,” said Aemilianus, softly.
“It is nothing, Commander,” said Calliodorus.
Women and children were still boarding galleys. I heard the trumpets of recall from the landing. The small boats, and the rafts, in the inner harbor, turned about then, and began to withdraw to the landing. I saw the standard of Cos removed from the walkway. Not a quarrel had been fired.
“It took me days to reach Port Cos,” said the young man, Marcus. “I was pursued closely. Once I was captured. I escaped. I moved at night. I hid in swamps. I am sorry.”
Aemilianus lifted his hand to him, and weakly grasped it. “You reached Port Cos,” he said.
“It took us time to fit and rig the ships,” said Calliodorus. “I am sorry.”
“Such things cannot be done in a moment,” said Aemilianus.
“There was no problem with the crew calls,” said Calliodorus. “Volunteers abounded. Indeed, there is no man with me who was not a volunteer. We had to turn men away. Most of these with me fought with us against Policrates and Voskjard.”
Aemilianus smiled. “Good,” he said.
“So far west on the river,” said Calliodorus, “we had not realized your straits were so desperate.”
That interested me. The major land forces of Ar, I had gathered, were somewhere in the west, south of the river. I wagered that the men there, those in the ranks there, at least, were no better informed than, apparently, had been those of Port Cos. There had been no dearth of intelligence as to the desperate situation of Ar’s Station, however, in this vicinity, east on the river, and south towards Ar.
“How many ships have you?” asked Aemilianus, a commander’s question.
“We have brought ten from Port Cos,” said Calliodorus, smiling, “but as we came upriver it seems some unidentified ships joined us, from here and there.”
“Unidentified?” smiled Aemilianus. “From here and there?”
“Yes,” said Calliodorus, smiling, and speaking very clearly. “They are unidentified, absolutely. We do not know where they came from, nor what might be their home ports.”
“How many of these came with you?” asked Aemilianus.
“Fifteen,” said Calliodorus.
“These ships would not be under the command of one called Jason, of Victoria?” smiled Aemilianus.
“I certainly could not be expected to know anything of that sort,” said Calliodorus.
“Praise the Vosk League!” said a man.
“Glory to the Vosk League!” whispered another man.
“It must be clearly understood, by all,” said Calliodorus, standing up, smiling, putting his half of the topaz into his pouch, “that the Vosk League, a neutral force on the river, one devoted merely to the task of maintaining law and order on the river, is certainly in no way involved in this operation.”
“Glory to the Vosk League,” said more than one man.
I moved away from the crowd about Aemilianus and walked along the outer edge of the piers. I did count twenty-five ships at the piers, and out in the harbor. Ten of these flew the blue flag I had taken for that of Cos, or that serving for Cos on the river. From the stem lines of fifteen of the ships, as far as I could tell, for s
ome were out in the harbor, and blocked by others, there flew no colors at all. Indeed, interestingly, as I walked along the piers I saw that canvases had been thrown over places on certain of the ships, at the stern, and on the sides of the bows, where one might be accustomed to look for a name.
On the way back, along the pier, I stopped by one of the unidentified ships, one wharfed adjacent to the Tais, the flagship. Indeed, it had been the second ship into the harbor, and the one that had rammed the Cosian ship amidships.
“You wonder where these ships are from?” asked a fellow near me, a fellow from Ar’s Station, on the pier.
“Yes,” I said. “I am curious.”
“This ship here,” he said, “is the Tina, out of Victoria. I have seen it often enough on patrols.”
“That is interesting,” I said. Victoria, of course, was the headquarters of the Vosk League.
“You must understand, of course,” said the fellow, “that I do not know that.”
“I understand,” I said.
A tall, dark-haired fellow was on the ship, near the bow. He carried himself as one of natural authority, but he wore no uniform, no insignia. His men I gathered, knew well enough who he was, and others need not know. He had noted us standing on the pier, near the bow. It was there that one of the cloaks of canvas had been placed, perhaps to conceal a name. One was similarly placed on the other side of the bow.
“Tal,” said he to us.
“Tal,” said I to him. “If I were to remove this canvas would I see the name ‘Tina’?”
The fellow on board looked sharply at the man with me. Apparently he knew him, from somewhere. Certainly the fellow with me had seemed to have no difficulty in identifying the moored vessel. “Vitruvius?” he asked.
“He can be trusted,” said the man with me. This trust, I gathered, I had earned on the wall, at the gate, on the walkway. Too, I think there was little truly secret about this ship, or the others.
“Do as you wish,” said the fellow on board.
I lifted up the canvas a bit, and then let it drop back, in place. I had read there, in archaic script, the name ‘Tina’.
“Your ship, then,” I said to the fellow on board, “is indeed the Tina.”
“There are doubtless many ships with that name,” said the fellow, smiling.
“And what is the port of registry of your ship?” I asked.
“It is registered west of here,” he grinned.
“Victoria?” I asked.
“Or Fina, or somewhere,” he said.
“Surely these ships with you, those surprisingly flying no colors, are not of the Vosk League.”
“We are an innocent trading fleet,” he said.
“One Cosian ship has been destroyed in the harbor,” I said, “and another has been disabled.”
“Yes,” he said. “It seems two regrettable accidents occurred in the harbor.”
“You are embarking women and children,” I said.
“Passengers,” he said.
“Some may think these are ships of the Vosk League,” I said.
“What do you think, Vitruvius?” asked the fellow, leaning on the rail.
“It seems to me unlikely that these could be ships of the Vosk League,” said the fellow beside me, “for the Vosk League, as is well known, is neutral. Does it not seem unlikely to you, as well?”
“Yes,” said the man on the ship. “It seems quite unlikely to me, as well.”
“What is your name?” I asked the fellow on the ship.
“What is yours?” he asked.
“Tarl,” I said.
“That is a common name,” he said.
“Yes,” I said, “especially in the north.”
“My name, too, is a common one,” he said, “especially west, on the river.”
“What is it?” I asked.
“Jason,” said he.
“Of what town?” I asked.
“The same which serves as the home port of my ship,” he said.
“West of here?” I said.
“Yes,” he said.
“Victoria?” I asked.
“Or Fina, or somewhere,” he said.
“I wish you well,” I said.
“I wish you well,” he said.
Women and children, and now men, were being taken aboard this vessel as well. Turning about, looking back to my left, toward the flagship, I saw Aemilianus being carried aboard. Some tarnsmen flew overhead, but none fired downward.
I watched the piers being emptied, women and children, and men, of Ar’s Station, embarking.
I then saw, a rope on her neck, her hands thonged behind her back, still veiled, still clad in the provocative rags which had been those of the former Lady Publia, Lady Claudia. She had been caught among the crowds of women and children on the pier, perhaps noted by the wounded Marsias, or one of the others who had been with us in the cell, or perhaps by others still, alerted by one or the other of them, as to her probable disguise. The Cosians had not come to the piers. She had not received her opportunity to surrender herself to them, begging from them the desperate boon and privilege of reduction to absolute slavery. Among others boarding the flagship, too, in her improvised hood, naked, her hands, too, thonged behind her back, as I had fastened them earlier, being pulled on her leash by one free woman, being herded from behind, poked and jabbed, and struck, with a stick by another, stumbling, ascending the narrow plank to the flagship, was a slave, one who had once been Lady Publia of Ar’s Station. I saw her lose her footing once on the plank and fall, belly downward on it, her legs on either side of it. She must have been utterly terrified, in the darkness of the hood, helpless, unable even to cry out. The first woman tugged at the leash. The other beat her with the stick. She struggled to her feet, and then, obedient to the leash, and trying to hurry before the cruel incitements of the stick, she ascended the plank. Female slaves are seldom left in any doubt on Gor that they are slaves, and particularly when they are in the keeping of free women. I saw two of the oarsmen lift her from the height of the plank, down, between the thwarts, and then place her kneeling, behind them, amidships, on the deck. Other slaves already knelt there. Too, in that place, kneeling, too, a neck rope dangling before her, but in no one’s keeping, knelt Lady Claudia. The two free women who had had the former Lady Publia in their care were courteously directed forward, where, before and about the stern castle and even on the small bow deck, were gathered several women and children. These, already, were being fed ships’ rations. Four or five ships, crowded with passengers, had come and gone more than once at the piers. These were ferrying passengers to the ships lying at anchor in the harbor. Then they themselves retained their last loads of passengers and, too, drawn away from the piers, out in the harbor, rode at anchor. Many other passengers had boarded the ships which had remained wharfed, such as the Tina and Tais. The various ships were now crowded with the men, women and children of Ar’s Station. I doubted that any one of them now held less than a hundred passengers. It must be remembered, too, that these were river galleys and, on the whole, smaller than the galleys of Thassa. Too, the river galley, for those whom it might interest, is normally shorter masted than a Thassa galley, seldom has more than one mast, and seldom carries the varieties of sails, changed on the yard according to wind conditions, that are carried by a Thassa galley. River galleys, also, as would be expected, seldom carry more than twenty oars to a side, and are almost always single-banked. Fifteen ships, mostly of Port Cos, were now at the piers, which, now, except for armed men, were mostly empty. I heard a battle horn sound, from the stern castle of the Tais. It was, I gathered, the recall. In orderly fashion, unchallenged, the numerous soldiers, guardsmen, armed oarsmen and such who had lined the inner side of the piers, facing the inner harbor, withdrew to the fifteen waiting ships. Many clambered over the sides. Others made use of various planks and gangplanks. On some of the ships now there was scarcely room for the oarsmen to ply their levers. Water lapped high on the hulls; the rams were now at
least a yard under the water; even the lower tips of their shearing blades were submerged. Mariners of some ships freed the mooring lines of others, and then their own, and then boarded, some of them using the lines themselves to regain the decks. Several of the ships then departed from the piers, pushing off with the three traditional poles. Among these was the ship called the Tina.
I looked out into the harbor.
I saw some of the ships there drawing up their anchors, generally two, one at the bow, one at the stern, and putting about, those that had faced the piers. The huge, painted eyes of these ships were then turning north, toward the mighty Vosk. The eyes of the other ships out in the harbor, those which had had the task of ferrying out passengers, already faced north. Such eyes are common on Gorean ships. How else, some mariners inquire, could she see her way? To the Gorean mariner, as to many who have followed the ways of the sea, learning her, fearing her, loving her, the ship is more than an engineered structure of iron and wood. It is more than tackle and blocks, beams and planks, canvas and caulking. There is an indefinability and preciousness about her, a mystique which informs her, an exceeding of what is seen, a nature and wondrous mystery, like that of a companion and lover, a creature and friend. Though I have seldom heard them speak explicitly of this, particularly when landsmen are present, many Gorean mariners seem to believe that the ship is in some way alive. This is supposed to occur when the eyes have been painted. It is then, some say, that she comes alive, when she can see. I suppose this may be regarded as superstition; on the other hand, it may also be regarded as love.
The ships in the outer harbor which had been facing north now, too, drew up their anchors.
I looked back toward the landing and the citadel in the distance, across the inner harbor. I could see the remains of the walkway from where I was. The citadel was burning.
I looked back to the harbor.
The first of the ships was now moving toward the river. Others were following her, in line.
Once again I looked back toward the citadel.
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