Norman, John - Gor 09 - Marauders of Gor.txt

by Marauders of Gor [lit]

  Marauders of GOR Chapter 1 The Hall I sat alone in the great hall, in the

  darkness, in the Captain's Chair. The walls of stone, some five feet in

  thickness, formed of large blocks, loomed about me. Before me, over the long,

  heavy table behind which I sat, I could see the large tiles of the hall floor.

  The table was not dark, and bare. No longer was it set with festive yellow and

  scarlet cloths, woven in distant Tor: no longer did it bear the freight of

  plates of silver from the mines of Tharna, nor of cunningly wrought goblets of

  gold from the smithies of luxurious Turia, Ar of the south. It was long since I

  had tasted the fiery paga of the Sa-Tarna fields north of the Vosk. Now, even

  the wines from the vineyards of Ar seemed bitter to me. I looked up, at the

  narrow apertures in the wall to my right. Through them I could see certain of

  the stars of Gor, in the tarn-black sky. The hall was dark. No longer did the

  several torches, bristling and tarred, burn in the iron rings at the wall. The

  hall was silent. No musicians played; no cup companions laughed and drank,

  lifting their goblets; on the broad, flat tiles before me, under the torches,

  barefoot, collared, in scarlet silks, bells at their wrists and ankles, there

  danced no slave girls. The hall was large, and empty and silent. I sat alone.

  Seldom did I have my chair carried from the hall. I remained much in this place.

  I heard footsteps approaching. I did not turn my head. It was caused me pain to

  do so. "Captain," I heard. It was Luma, the chief scribe of my house, in her

  blue robe and sandals. Her hair was blond and straight, tied behind her head

  with a ribbon of blue wool, from the bounding Hurt, died in the blood of the

  Vosk sorp. She was a scrawny girl, not attractive, but with deep eyes, blue; and

  she was a superb scribe, in her accounting swift, incisive, accurate, brilliant;

  once she had been a paga slave, though a poor one; I had slaved her from Surbus,

  a captain, who had purchased her to slay her, she not having served him to his

  satisfaction in the alcoves of the tavern; he would have cast her, bound, to the

  swift, silken urts in the canals. I had dealt Surbus his death blow, but, before

  he had died I had, on the urging of the woman, she moved to pity, carried him to

  the roof of the tavern, that he might, before his eyes closed, look once more

  upon the sea. He was a pirate, and a cut-throat, but he was not unhappy in his

  death; he had died by the sword, which would have been his choice, and before he

  had died he had looked again upon the gleaming Thassa; it is called the death of

  blood and the sea; he died not unhappy; men of Port Kar do not care to die in

  their beds, weak, lingering, at the mercy of tiny foes that cannot see; they

  live often by violence and desire that they shall similarly perish; to die by

  the sword is regarded as the right, and honour, of he who lives by it.

  "Captain," said the woman, standing back, to one side of the chair. After the

  death of Surbus, the woman had been mine. I had won her from him by sword right.

  I had, of course, as she had expected, put her in my collar, and kept her slave.

  To my astonishment, however, by the laws of Port Kar, the ships, properties and

  chattels of Surbus, he having been vanquished in fair combat and permitted death

  of blood and sea, became mine; his men stood ready to obey me; his ships became

  mine to command; his hall became my hall, his riches mine, his slaves mine. It

  was thus that I had become a captain in Port Kar. Jewel of gleaming Thassa. "I

  have the accounts for your inspection," said Luma. Luma no longer wore a collar.

  After the victory of the 25th of Se'Kara, over the fleets of Tyros and Cos, I

  had freed her. She had much increased my fortunes. Freed, she took payment, but

  not as much as her services, I knew, warranted. Few scribes, I expected, were so

  skilled in the supervision and management of complex affairs as this light,

  unattractive, brilliant girl. Other captains, other merchants, seeing the waxing

  of my fortunes, and understanding the commercial complexities involved, had

  offered this scribe considerable emoluments to join their service. She, however,

  had refused to do so. I expect she was pleased at the authority, and trust and

  freedom, which I had accorded her. Too, perhaps, she had grown fond of the house

  of Bosk. "I do not wish to see the accounts," I told her. "The Venna and Tela

  have arrived from Scagnar," she said, "with full cargoes of the fur of sea

  sleen. My information indicates that highest prices currently for such products

  are being paid in Asperiche." "Very well," I said, "give the men time for their

  pleasure, eight days, and have the cargoes transferred to one of my round ships,

  whichever can be most swiftly fitted, and embark them for Asperiche, the Venna

  and Tela as convoy." "Yes, Captain," said Luma. "Go now," I said. "I do not wish

  to see the accounts." "Yes, Captain," she said. At the door, she stopped. "Does

  the captain wish food or drink?" she asked. "No," I told her. "Thurnock," she

  said, "would be pleased should you play with him a game of Kaissa." I smiled.

  Huge, yellow-haired Thurnock, he of the peasants, master of the great bow,

  wished to play Kaissa with me. He knew himself no match for me in this game.

  "Thank Thurnock for me," said I, "but I do not wish to play." I had not played

  Kaissa since my return from the northern forests. Thurnock was a good man, a

  kind man. The yellow-haired giant meant well. "The accounts," said Luma, "are

  excellent. Your enterprises are prospering. You are much richer." "Go," said I,

  "Scribe. Go, Luma." She left. I sat alone in the darkness. I did not wish to be

  disturbed. I looked about the hall, at the great walls of stone, the long table,

  the tiles, the narrow apertures through which I could glimpse the far stars,

  burning in the scape of the night. I was rich. So Luma said, so I knew. I smiled

  bitterly. There are few men as helpless, as impoverished as I. It was true that

  the fortunes of the house of Bosk had waxed mightily. I supposed there were few

  merchants in known Gor whose houses were as rich, as powerful, as mine.

  Doubtless I was the envy of men who did not know me, Bosk, the recluse, who had

  returned crippled from the northern forests. I was rich. But I was poor, because

  I could not move the left side of my body. Wounds had I at the shore of Thassa,

  high on the coast, at the edge of the forests, when one night I had, in a

  stockade of enemies, commanded by Sarus of Tyros, chosen to recollect my honour.

  Never could I regain my honour, but I had recollected it. And never had I

  forgotten it. Once I had been Tarl Cabot, in the songs called Tarl of Bristol. I

  recalled that I, or what had once been I, had fought at the siege of Ar. That

  young man with fiery hair, laughing, innocent, seemed far from me now, this

  huddled mass, half paralysed, bitter, like a maimed larl, sitting alone in a

 
captain's chair, in a great darkened hall. My hair was no longer now the same.

  The sea, the wind and the salt, and, I suppose, the changes in my body, as I had

  matured, and learned with bitterness the nature of the world, and myself, and

  men, had changed it. It was now, I thought, not much different from that of

  other men, as I had learned, too, that I was not much different, either, from

  others. It had turned lighter now, and more straw coloured. Tarl Cabot was gone.

  He had fought in the siege of Ar. One could still here the songs. He had

  restored Lara, Tatrix of Tharna, to her throne. He had entered the Sardar, and

  was one of the few men who knew the true nature of the Priest-Kings, those

  remote and extraordinary beings who controlled the world of Gor. He had been

  instrumental in the Nest War, and had earned the friendship and gratitude of the

  Priest-King, Misk, glorious, gentle Misk. "there is Nest Trust between us," Misk

  had told him. I recalled that I , in the palms of my hands, had felt the

  delicate touch of the antennae of that golden creature. "Yes. There is Nest

  Trust between us, " Tarl Cabot told him. And he had gone to the Land of the

  Wagon Peoples, to the Plains of Turia, and had obtained there the last egg of

  the Priest-Kings, and had returned it, safe, to the Sardar. He had well served

  Priest-Kings, had Tarl Cabot, that young brave distant man, so fine, so proud,

  so much of the warriors. And he had gone, too, to Ar. And there defeated the

  schemes of Cernus and the hideous aliens, the Others, intent on the conquest of

  Gor, and then the Earth He had well served Priest-Kings, that young man. And

  then he had ventured to The Delta of the Vosk, to make his way through it, to

  make contact with Samos of Port Kar, agent of Priest-Kings, to continue in their

  service. But in the Delta of the Vosk, he had lost his honour> He had betrayed

  his codes. There, merely to save his miserable life, he had chosen ignominious

  slavery to the freedom of honourable death. He had sullied the sword the honour,

  which he had pledged to Ko-ro-ba's Home Stone. By that act he had cut himself

  away from his codes, his vows. For such an act, there was no atonement, even to

  the throwing of one's body upon one's sword. It was in that moment of his

  surrender to his cowardice that Tarl Cabot was gone and, in his place, knelt a

  slave contemptuously named Bosk, for a great shambling oxlike creature of the

  plains of Gor. But this Bosk, forcing his mistress, the beautiful Telima, to

  grant him his freedom, had come to Port Kar, bringing her with him as his slave,

  and had there, after many adventures, earned riches and fame, and the title even

  of Admiral of Port Kar. He stood high in the Council of Captains. And was it no

  he who had been victor on the 25th of Se'kara, in the great engagement of the

  fleets of Port Kar and Cos and Tyros? He had come to love Telima, and had freed

  her, but when he had learned the location of his former Free Companion, Talena,

  once daughter of Marlenus of Ar, and vowed to free her from slavery, Telima had

  left him, in the fury of a Gorean female, and returned to the rence marshes, her

  home in the Vosk's vast delta. A true Gorean, he knew, would have gone after

  her, and brought her back in slave bracelets and a collar. But he, in his

  weakness, had wept, and let her go. Doubtless she despised him now in the

  marshes And so, Tarl Cabot gone, Bosk, Merchant of Port Kar, had gone to the

  northern forests, to free Talena, once his Free Companion. There he had

  encountered Marlenus of Ar, Urbar of Ar, Urbar of Urbars. He, though only of the

  Merchants, had saved Marlenus of Ar from the degradation of slavery. That one

  such as he, had been of service to the great Marlenus of Ar, doubtless was

  tantamount to insult. But Marlenus had been freed. Earlier he had disowned his

  daughter, Talena, for she had sued for her freedom, a slave's act. His honour

  had been kept. That of Tarl Cabot could not be recovered But I recalled that I

  had, in the stockade of Tyros, recollected the matter of honour. I had entered

  the stockade alone, not expecting to survive. It was not that I was the friend

  of Marlenus of Ar, or his ally. It was rather that I had, as a warrior, or one

  once of such as caste, set myself the task of his liberation. I had accomplished

  this task. And, in the night, under the stars, I had recollected a

  never-forgotten honour. But wounds had I to show for this act, and a body heavy

  with pain, whose left side I could not move. I had recollected my honour, but it

  had won for me only the chair of a cripple. To be sure, carved in wood, high on

  the chair, was the helmet with crest of sleen-fur, the mark of the captain, but

  I could not rise from the chair. My own body, and its weakness, held me, as

  chains could not. Proud and mighty as the chair might be, it was the throne only

  of the maimed remains of a man I was rich! I gazed into the darkness of the

  hall. Samos of Port Kar had purchased Talena, as a mere slave, from two panther

  girls, obtaining her with ease in this manner while I had risked my life in the

  forest. I laughed. But I had recollected my honour. But little good had it done

  me. Was honour not a sham, a fraud, an invention of clever men to manipulate

  their less wily brethren? Why had I not returned to Port Kar and left Marlenus

  to his fate, to slavery and doubtless, eventually, to a slave's death, broken

  and helpless, under the lashes of overseers in the quarries of Tyros? I sat in

  the darkness and wondered on honour, and courage. If they were shams, I thought

  them most precious shams. How else could we tell ourselves from urts and sleens?

  What distinguishes us from such beasts? The ability to multiply and subtract, to

  tell lies, to make knives? No, I think particularly it is the sense of honour,

  and the will to hold one's ground. But I had no right to such thoughts, for I

  had surrendered my honour, my courage, in the delta of the Vosk, I had behaved

  as might have any animal, not a man. I could not recover my honour, but I could,

  and did upon one occasion, recollect it, in a stockade at the shore of Thassa,

  at the edge of the northern forests. I grew cold in the blankets. I had become

  petulant, bitter, petty, as an invalid, frustrated and furious at his own

  weakness, does. But when I, half paralysed and crippled, had left the shores of

  Thassa I had left behind me a beacon, a mighty beacon formed from the logs of

  the stockade of Sarus, and it blazed behind me, visible for more than fifty

  pasangs at sea. I did not know why I had set the beacon, but I had done so. It

  had burned long and fiery in the Gorean night, on the stones of the beach, and

  then, in the morning it would have been ashes, and the winds and rains would

  have scattered them, and there would have been little left, save the stones, the

  sand and the prints of the feet of sea birds, tiny, like the thief's brand, in

  the sand. But it would once have burned, and that was fixed, undeniable, a part

  of what had been, that it had burned; nothing could change that, not the

  eternities of time, not the will of Priest-Kings, the machinations of others,

  the wilfulness and hatred of men; nothing could change that it had been, that

  once on the beach, there, a beacon had burned. I
wondered how men should live.

  In my chair, I had thought long on such matters. I knew only that I did not know

  the answer to this question. Yet it is an important question, is it not? Many

  wise men give wise answers to this question, and yet they do not agree among

  themselves. Only the simple, the fools, the unreflective, the ignorant, know the

  answer to this question. Perhaps to a question this profound, the answer cannot

  be known. Perhaps it is a question too deep to be answered. Yet we do know there

  are false answers to such a question. This suggests that there may be a true

  answer, for how can there be falsity without truth? One thing seems clear to me,

  that a morality which produces guilt and self-torture, which results in anxiety

  and agony, which shortens lifespans, cannot be the answer. But what is not

  mistaken? The Goreans have very different notions of morality from those of

  Earth. Yet who is to say who is the more correct? I envy sometimes the

  simplicities of those of Earth, and those of Gor, who, creatures of their

  conditioning, are untroubled by such matters, but I would not be s either of

  them. If either should be correct, it is for them no more than a lucky

  coincidence. They would have fallen into truth, but to take truth for granted,

  is not to know it. Truth not won is not possessed. We are not entitled to truths

  for which we have not fought. Do we not know learn by living, as we learn to

  speak by speaking, to paint by painting, to build by building? Those who best

  know how to live, sometimes it seems to me, are those least likely to be

  articulate in such skills. It is not that they have not learned, but, having

  learned, they find they cannot tell what they know, for only words can be told,

  and what is learned in living is more than words, other than words beyond words.

  We can say, "This building is beautiful," but we do not learn the beauty of the

  building from the words; the building it is which teaches us its beauty; and how

  can one speak the beauty of the building, as it is? Does one say it has so many

  pillars, that it has a roof of a certain type, and such? Can one simply say.

  "The building is beautiful?" Yes, one can say that but what one learns when one

  sees the beauty of the building cannot be spoken; it is not words; it is the