"Praise the Priest-Kings," she repeated endlessly to herself, nodding her head
up and down Near her , bored, was a slender, blondish girl, looking about. He r
hair was hung in a snood of scarlet yarn, bound with filaments of golden wire.
She wore, over her shoulder, a cape of white fur of the northern sea sleen. She
had a scarlet vest, embroidered in gold, worn over a long-sleeved blouse of
white wool, from distant Ar. She wore, too, a log woollen skirt, dyed red, which
was belted with black, with a buckle of gold, wrought in Cos. She wore shoes of
black polished leather, which folded about her ankles, laced twice, once across
the instep, once about the ankle. She saw me regarding her with interest, and
looked away. Other wenches, too, were in the crowd. In the northern villages,
and in the forest towns, and northward on the coast the woman do not veil
themselves, as is common in the cities to the south. Kassau is the seat of the
High Initiate of the north, who claims spiritual sovereignty over Torvaldsland,
which is commonly taken to commence with the thinning of the trees northward.
This claim, like many of those of the initiates, is disputed by few, and ignored
by most. The men of Torvaldsland, on the whole, I knew, while tending to respect
Priest-Kings, did not accord them special reverence. They held to old gods, and
old ways. The religion of the Priest-Kings, institutionalised and ritualised by
the castle of Initiates, had made little headway among the primitive men to the
north. It had, however, taken hold in many towns, such as Kassau. Initiates
often used their influence and their gold, and pressures on trade and goods, to
spread their beliefs and rituals.. Sometimes a Chieftain, converted to their
ways, would enforce his own commitments on his subordinates. Indeed, this was
not unusual. Too, often, a chief's conversion would bring with it, even without
force, those of his people who felt bound to him in loyalty. Sometimes, too, the
religion of the Priest-Kings, under the control of the initiates, utulizing
secular rulers, was propagated by fire and sword. Sometimes those who insisted
on retaining the old ways, or were caught making the sign of the fist, the
hammer, over their ale were subjected to death by torture. One that I had heard
of had been boiled alive in one of the great sunken wood-lined tubs in which
meat was boiled for retainers. The water is heated by placing rocks, taken from
a fire, into the water. When the rock has been in the water, it is removed with
a rake and then reheated. Another had been roasted alive on a spit over a long
fire. It was said that he did not utter a sound. Another was slain when an adder
forced into his mouth tore its way free through the side of his face. I looked
at the cold, haughty, pale face of the High Initiate on his throne. He was
flanked by minor initiates, in their white robes, with shaven heads. Initiates
do not eat meat, or beans. They are trained in the mysteries of mathematics.
They converse among themselves in archaic Gorean, which is no longer spoken
among the people. Their services, too, are conducted in this language. Portions
of the services, however, are translated into contempory Gorean. When I had
first come to Gor I had been forced to learn certain long prayers to the
Priest-Kings, but I had never fully mastered them, and had, by now, long
forgotten them. Still I recognized them when heard. Even now, on a high
platform, behind the white rail, an Initiate weas reading one aloud to the
congregation. I was never much fond of such meetings, the services and the
rituals of initiates, but I had some special interest in the service which was
being helf today Ivar Forkbeard was dead. I knew this man of Torvaldsland only
by reputation. He was a rover, a great captain, a pirate, a trader, a warrior.
It had been he, and his men, who had freed Chenbar of Tyros, the Sea Sleen, from
a dungeon in Port Kar, breaking through to him, shattering his chains with the
blunt hammerlike backs of their great, curved, single-bladed axes. He was said
to be fearless, and mighty, swift with sword and axe, fond of jokes, a deep
drinker, a master of pretty wenches, and a madman. But he had taken in fee from
Chenbar Chenbar's weight in the sapphires of Shendi. I did not think him too
mad. But now the Forkbeard was dead. It was said that he wished, in regret for
the wickedness of his life, to be carried in death to the temple of Priest-Kings
in Kassau, that the High Initiate there might, if it be his mercy, draw on his
bones in the sacred grease the sign of the Priest-Kings. It would thus indicate
that he, Forkbeard, if not in life, had in death acknowledged the error of his
way, and embraced the will and wisdom of the faith of the Priest-Kings. Such a
conversion, even though it be in death, would be a great coup for the initiates.
I could sense the triumph of the High Initiate on his throne, though his cold
face betrayed little sign of his victory, Now initiates to one side of the
sanctuary, opposite the throne of the High Initiate, began to chant the litanies
of the Priest-Kings. Responses, in archaic Gorean, repetitive, simple were
uttered by the crowd. Kassau is a town of wood, and the temple is the greatest
building in the town, It towers far above the squalid huts, and stabler homes of
merchants, which crowd about it. Too, the town is surrounded by a wall, with two
gates, one large, facing the inlet, leading in from Thassa, the other small,
leading to the forest behind the town. The wall is of sharpened logs, and is
defended by a catwalk. The main business of Kassau is trade, lumber and fishing.
The slender striped parsit fish has vast plankton banks north of the town, and
may there, particularly in the spring and the fall, be taken in great numbers.
The smell of the fish-drying sheds of Kassau carries far out to sea. The trade
is largely in furs from the north, exchanged for weapons, iron bars, salt and
luxury goods, such as jewellery and silk, from the south, usually brought to
Kassau from Lydius by ten-oared coasting vessel. Lumber, of course, is a
valuable commodity. It is generally milled and taken northward. Torvaldsland,
though not treeless, is bleak. In it, fine Ka-la-na wood, for example, and
supple temwood, cannot grow. These two woods are prized in the north. A hall
built with Ka-la-na wood, for example, is thought a great luxury. Such halls,
incidentally, are often adorned with rich carvings. The men of Torvaldsland are
skilled with their hands. Trade to the south, of course is largely in furs
acquired from Torvaldsland, and in barrels of smoked, dried parsit fish. From
the south, of course, the people of Kassau obtain the goods they trade northward
to Torvaldsland and , too, of course, civilised goods for themselves. The
population of Kassau I did not think to be more than eleven hundred persons.
There are villages about, however, which use Kassau as their market and meeting
place. If we count these perhaps we might think of greater Kassau as having a
population in the neighbourhood of some twenty-three hundred persons. The most
important thing about Kassau, however, was that it was the seat of the High
Initiate of the north. It was, accor
dingly, the spiritual centre of a district
extending for hundreds of pasangs around. The nearest High Initiate to Kassau
was hundreds of pasangs south in Lydius. The initiates are an almost universal,
well-organized, industrious caste. They have many monasteries, holy places and
temples. An initiate may often travel for hundreds of pasangs, and, each night,
find himself in a house of initiates. They regard themselves as the highest
caste, and in many cities, are so regarded generally. There is often a tension
between them and the civil authorities, for each regards himself as supreme in
matters of policy and law for their district. The initiates have their own laws,
and courts, and certain of them are well versed in the laws of the initiates.
Their education, generally, is of little obvious practical value, with its
attention to authorised exegeses of dubious, difficult texts, purporting to be
revelations of Priest-Kings, the details and observances of their own calendars,
their interminable involved rituals and so on, but paradoxically, this sort of
learning, impractical though it seems, has a subtle practical aspect. It tends
to bind initiates together, making them interdependent, and muchly different
from common men. It sets them apart, and makes them feel important and wise, and
specially privileged. There are many texts, of course, which are secret to the
caste, and not even available to scholars generally. In these it is rumoured
there are marvelous spells and mighty magic, particularly if read backwards on
certain feast days. Whereas initiates tend not to be taken with great
seriousness by the high castes, or the more intelligent members iof the
population, except in matters of political alliance, their teachings and
purported ability to intercede with Priest-Kings, and further the welfare of
their adherents, is taken with great seriousness by many of the lower castes.
And many men, who suspect that the initiates, in their claims and pretensions,
are frauds, will nonetheless avoid coming into conflict with the caste. This is
particularly true of civil leaders who do not wish the power of the initiates to
turn the lower castes against them. And, after all, who knows much of
Priest-Kings, other than the obvious fact that they exist. The invisible barrier
about the Sardar is evidence of that, and the policing, by flame death, of
illegal weapons and inventions. The Gorean knows that there are Priest-Kings. He
does not, of course, know their nature. That is where the role of the initiates
becomes most powerful, The Gorean knows there are Priest-Kings, whoever or
whatever they maybe. He is also confronted with a socially and economically
powerful caste that pretends to be able to intermediate between Priest-Kings and
common folk. What if some of the claims of Initiates should be correct? What if
they do have influence with Priest-Kings? The common Gorean tends to play it
safe and honour the Initiates. He will, however, commonly, have as little to do
with them as possible. This does not mean that he will not contribute to their
temples and fees for placating Priest-Kings. The attitude of Priest-Kings toward
Initiates, as I recalled, having once been in the Sardar, is generally one of
disinterest. They are regarded as being harmless. They are taken by many
Priest-Kings as an evidence of the aberrations of the human kind. Incidentally,
it is a teaching of the initiates that only initiates can obtain eternal life.
The regimen for doing this has something to do with learning mathematics, and
with avoiding the impurities of meat and beans. This particular teaching of the
initiates, it is interesting to note, is that least taken seriously by the
general population. The Gorean feeling generally is that there is no reason why
initiates or only initiates, should live forever. Initiates, though often feared
by lower castes, are also regarded as being a bit odd, and often figure in
common, derisive jokes. No female, incidentally, may become an Initiate. It is a
consequence, thusly, that no female can obtain eternal life. I have often
thought that the Initiates, if somewhat more clever, could have a much greater
power than they posses on Gor. For example, if they could fuse their
superstitions and lore, and myths, with a genuine moral message of one sort or
another, they might appeal more seriously to the general population: if they
spoke more sense people would be less sensitive to, or disturbed by, the
nonsense; further, they should teach that all Goreans might, by following their
rituals, obtain eternal life; that would broaden the appeal of their message,
and subtly utilise the fear of death to further their projects; lastly, they
should make greater appeal to women than they do, for, in most Gorean cities,
women, of one sort or another, care for and instruct the children in the crucial
first years. That would be the time to imprint them, while innocent and
trusting, at the mother's or nurse's knee, with superstitions which might, in
simpler brains, subtly control then the length of their lives. So simple an
adjustment as the promise of eternal life to women who behaved in accordance
with their teachings, instructing the young and so on, might have much effect.
But the initiates, like many Gorean castes, were tradition bound. Besides, they
were quite powerful as it was. Most Goreans took with some seriousness their
claim to be able to placate and influence Priest-Kings. That was more than they
needed for considerable power. There had been much fear in Kassau when the ship
of Ivar Forkbeard had entered the inlet. But it had come at midday. And on its
mast, round and of painted wood, had hung the white shield. His men had rowed
slowly, singing a dirge at the oars. Even the tarnhead at the ship's prow had
been swung back on the great wooden hinges. Sometimes, in light raiding galleys,
it is so attached, to remove its weight from the prow's height, to ensure
greater stability in high seas; it is always, however, at the prow in harbour,
or when the ship enters an inlet or river to make its strike; in calm seas, of
course, there is little or no damage in permitting it to surmount the prow
generally. That the tarnhead was hinged back, as the ship entered the inlet, was
suitable indication, like the white shield, that it came in peace. The ship was
a beautiful ship, sleek and well-lined. It was a twenty-bencher, but this
nomenclature may be confusing. There were twenty beches to a side, with two men
to each bench. It carried , thus, forty oars, with two men to each oar. Tersites
of Port Kar, the controversial inventer and shipwright, had advocated more than
one man to an oar but, generally, the southern galleys utilised one man per oar,
three oars and three men on a diagonal bench, facing aft, the oars staggered,
the diagonality of the bench permitting the multiplicity of levers. The oars
were generally some nineteen feet in length, and narrower than the southern
oars, that they might cut and sweep with great speed, more rapidly than the
wider bladed oar; and with two men to each oar, and the lightness of the ship,
this would produce great speed. As in the southern galleys the keel to beam
ratio was designed, to
o, for swiftness, being generally in the neighbourhood of
one to eight. Forkbeard's ship, or serpent, as they are sometimes called, was
approximately eighty Gorean feet in length, with a beam of some ten feet Gorean.
His ship, like most of the northern ships, did not have a rowing frame, and the
rowers sat within the hull proper, facing, of course, aft. The thole ports, I
noted, had covers on the inside, on swivels, which permitted them to be closed
when the ship was under sail. The sail was quite different from the southern
ships, being generally squarish, though somewhat wider at the bottom. The mast,
like that of the southern ships, could be lowered. It fitted into two blocks of
wood, and was wedged into the top block by means of a heavy diagonal plug,
driven tight with hammers. The northern ship carries one sail, not the several
sails, all lateens, of the southern ships, which must be removed and replaced.
It is an all-purpose sail, hung straight from a spar of needle wood. It can be
shortened or let out by reefing ropes. At its edges, corner spars can hold it
spread from the ship. I doubted that such a ship could sail as close to the wind
as a lateen-rigged ship, but the advantages of being able to shorten or let out
sail in a matter of moments were not inconsiderable. The sail was striped, red
and white. The ship like most of the northern ships, was clinker built, being
constructed of overlapping planks, or strakes, the frame then fitted within
them. Between the strakes, tarred ropes and tar served as calking. Outside the
planks, too, was a coating of painted tar, to protect then from the sea, and the
depredations of ship worms. The tar was painted red and black, in irregular
lines. The ship, at night,, mast down with such colourings, moving inland on a
river, among the shadows, would be extremely difficult to detect. It was a
raider's ship. The clinker-built construction, as opposed to the carvel
construction of the south, with flush planking, is somewhat more inclined to
leak, but is much stronger in the high waters of the north. The clinker
construction allows the ship to literally bend and twist, almost elastically, in
a vicious sea; the hull planking can be bent more than a foot Gorean without
buckling. The decking on the ship is loose, and may be lifted or put to one
Norman, John - Gor 09 - Marauders of Gor.txt Page 4