Mercenaries of Gor

by Norman, John;

  “At this hour?” he asked, horrified.

  “Yes,” I said. “The enemy may be near.”

  “What enemy?” he asked.

  “I do not know,” I said.

  “Report to me when you learn,” he said, rolling over.

  “I am not joking,” I said.

  “I feared not,” he grumbled.

  “Get up,” I said.

  “One cannot begin to fight until the fight has begun, can one?” he asked.

  “I hope it does not follow from that that fighting is impossible,” I said.

  “Of course not,” he said. I began to sense and dread a lesson in Alar logic.

  “Well, in a sense,” I said, “maybe not.”

  “Has the fight begun?” he inquired.

  “No,” I said.

  “Then you cannot expect me to begin fighting,” he said.

  “Of course not,” I said, hesitantly.

  “When the fray begins,” said he, “awaken me.”

  “Do you wish to be murdered in your bed?” I asked.

  “I had never thought much about it,” said Hurtha, “but now that I reflect actively upon the matter, no. Why? Who is going to murder me in my bed?”

  “I am considering it,” I said.

  “You will not do so,” he informed me.

  “Why?” I asked, genuinely interested.

  “Among other things,” he said, “your respect for poetry is too great.”

  “You must be prepared for combat,” I told him.

  “I am preparing even now,” he said, rolling over.

  “How is that?” I asked.

  “I am pacing myself,” he said. “I am conserving my strength. Surely you are aware that a well-rested body and a clear mind are two among several of the soldier’s best friends.”

  “Perhaps,” I granted him.

  “They are important, too, to poetry,” he said, “of the sturdy, manly sort, that is, not to the neurasthenic drivel of mere poetasters and versifiers.”

  “Doubtless,” I said. He was then again asleep. Hurtha was one of the few folks I had ever known who had the capacity to fall asleep like lightning. Doubtless this was connected with a clear conscience. Alars, incidentally, are renowned for their capacity to wreak havoc, conduct massacres, chop off heads, and such, and then get a good night’s sleep afterwards. They just do not worry about such things. I hoped that the enemy, if there was one, would not now fall upon the camp like a storm. Still, if they did, Hurtha might have escaped, sleeping through the slaughter.

  “Did you hear the alarm bar?” asked Mincon, coming over to me, his blanket over his arm.

  “Yes,” I said.

  “I thought I might have dreamed it,” he said.

  “Boabissia heard it, too,” I said.

  “It is not now ringing,” he said.

  “No,” I said.

  “The camp is pretty quiet,” he said.

  “Yes,” I said. We could see folks going about their business, folding their blankets, seeking out the latrines, starting up their morning fires.

  “It was a false alarm,” he said.

  “Apparently,” I said.

  “You are not certain?” he asked.

  “No,” I said.

  “What could have happened?” he asked.

  “I heard a fellow crying out that the city had fallen,” I said.

  “That is impossible,” he said. “No enemy is within hundreds of pasangs. Torcadino is garrisoned. It is impregnable. It lies even, in these times, in the midst of allied armies.”

  “It could be done,” I said.

  “You would have to move an army through armies to take the city,” he said.

  “Or over armies,” I said.

  “You would have to smuggle an army into the city,” he said.

  “Yes,” I said.

  “Impossible,” he said.

  “With some modest collusion, not really,” I said.

  “You are joking,” he said.

  “No,” I said.

  “If there was such a thing,” he said, “we would hear of it. There would be great fighting.”

  “It is quiet here,” I said. “That does not mean, however, that somewhere else in the city, even now, there might not be fighting. A few blocks away, unknown to us, men may be dying. The streets may be running with blood.”

  “I see no smoke,” he said. “There seem no signs of flames.”

  “That could mean little,” I said. “Perhaps it is desired to keep the city intact, to maintain the integrity of its fortifications, to protect its arsenal and warehouses, to preserve its resources.”

  “Perhaps,” he smiled.

  I looked at him, suddenly, surprised.

  “There is one way to find out,” he said.

  “How?” I asked.

  “Climb up here,” he said, “to the wagon box.”

  I joined him on the height of the wagon box. He pointed over the wagons, over the camp, over the buildings about the camp.

  “Do you see the cylinder there?” he asked.

  “Yes,” I said.

  “That is the central cylinder of Torcadino,” he said, “the administrative headquarters of her first executive, whether it be Administrator or Ubar.”

  “Yes?” I said.

  “Look to its summit,” he said.

  I did so.

  “Do you know the flag of Torcadino?” he asked.

  “No,” I said.

  “It does not matter,” he said, “for of recent months what has flown there has not been the flag of Torcadino, but another flag, that of Cos.”

  “There is no flag there,” I said. “I know the flag of Cos. I have seen it frequently. But there is no flag whatsoever there.”

  “Do you not find that interesting?” he asked.

  “You are not a simple wagoner,” I said.

  “What do you see there?” he asked.

  “I see a standard,” I said.

  “What sort of standard?” he asked.

  “A military standard, I suppose,” I said.

  “Describe it,” he said.

  “It is silver,” I said. “It is far off. It is hard to make out. The sun is glinting on it.”

  “It is the standard of the silver tarn,” he said. “It is mounted on a silvered pole. Near the top of the pole there is a rectangular plate on which there is writing. Surmounting this plate, clutching it in its talons, is a tarn, done in silver, its wings outstretched.”

  “You can see that,” I asked, “at this distance?”

  “No,” he said. “But I know the standard. I have seen it before.”

  I regarded him.

  “Do you know the standard?” he asked.

  “No,” I said.

  “You are an astute fellow,” he said. “The city has indeed fallen. Furthermore, if I am not mistaken, you understand how this could have taken place.”

  “Through the aqueducts,” I said.

  “Of course,” he said. “They were entered, one near the Issus, the other in the Hills of Eteocles, more than a hundred pasangs away. Soldiers, in double file, wading, moving sometimes even over the heads of Cosian troops, traversed them.”

  “Brilliant,” I said.

  “Guards of one watch were purchased by gold,” he said. “Those of another had their throats cut by partisans within the city.”

  “Whose standard is it?” I asked.

  “It is the standard of my captain,” he said, “Dietrich of Tarnburg.”

  13

  We Proceed to the Semnium

  I heard the crying of confused, frightened children, the lamentations of women.

  “That way, go that way,” said a soldier, closing off a street.

  In the streets there was much movement, much of it between soldiers, directed movement, movement toward the great gate of Torcadino. Many folks had packs on their backs.

  “Look out, fellow!” said a voice.

  I moved aside, to let a two-wheeled cart, laden wit
h baggage, drawn by a fellow, pass. The streets were crowded, filled with refugees.

  “Follow me,” had said Mincon. “You will be safe. Keep closely together.”

  “I want my ax,” said Hurtha.

  “Keep closely together,” I said. “Do not get separated.”

  A number of dwellings along the way had been roped off. We could catch occasional glimpses within them, through opened doors, and, sometimes, through windows. Too, we could hear shouts, and other sounds, such as furniture being broken. Within these buildings, soldiers were looting. From the high, opened window of another building, some four or five feet below the sill, some forty feet or so above the street, its back against the stuccoed surface of the wall, there hung a body.

  “What is that?” I asked Mincon.

  “I cannot read,” said Mincon. “There is a sign on its neck. What does it say?”

  “’Looter,’” I said.

  “Then that is what it was,” said Mincon.

  “There is much looting going on,” I said. “In more than a dozen buildings we have seen it.”

  “That was a civilian,” said Mincon. “It is illegal for such to loot. They are not authorized to do so.”

  “I see,” I said.

  “There must be order in Torcadino,” said Mincon.

  “Of course,” I said.

  “I want my ax,” said Hurtha.

  “Just keep close to us,” I said.

  We had surrendered our weapons at the entrance to the wagon camp, as, in the company of Mincon, we had left it a few Ehn ago. A strict weapons control had been instituted in Torcadino. Possession of an unauthorized weapon could be construed as a capital offense, the penalty for which, at the discretion of any soldier, could be exacted in place, instantly, and without recourse or appeal. The talons of the silver tarn did not grasp weakly. Yet this had been done in a legalistic fashion. In my wallet was a scrap of paper with a number on it, a number which matched another, that left with my weapons, left behind near the weapons table, that set up at the entrance of the camp.

  We were jostled in the throngs.

  “That way,” said a soldier, gesturing. “That way.”

  In the streets there was no smell of smoke. Smoke, like stifling clouds, did not block the sun, turning the day to choking dusk. Our eyes did not sting and water. One could breathe without difficulty. Sometimes, when a town is taken, you can feel the heat of burning buildings even blocks away. But Torcadino was not aflame.

  “That way,” said another soldier.

  We hurried along in the crowds, following Mincon.

  We passed a slave girl, kneeling, chained by the neck to a slave ring. It was fixed in the side of a building, fastened to its bolted plate, about a yard above the level of the street. Her face was stained with tears. She had her hands clutched desperately on the chain, near the ring. I did not know if her master had put her there, intending to return for her, or if she had been abandoned. She was naked. She would remain where she was. She was chained there.

  “Come along,” said Mincon. We continued on, through the throngs. “Keep together,” he said. We did so, as best we could. I was behind him, closely, and then came Hurtha, and then, close behind him, Boabissia. Behind Boabissia, ropes on their necks, the captor’s termini of these hempen confinements in the grip of Hurtha, came Feiqa and Tula. How fearful they had been this morning to learn that the city had now a new master. How frightened they had been, exchanging glances. So, too, I supposed, might have been tharlarion and sleen, other forms of animals, if they, too, were aware of such things, or saw fit to consider them. Yet Feiqa and Tula, objectively, had far less to fear in the fall of a city than a free person. They had, objectively, little more to fear than other domestic animals. They presumably, like them, would merely find themselves with new masters. We had not put the tethers on Feiqa and Tula because we feared they might try to slip away from us in the crowds, but to keep them with us, to make certain that they were not swept from us, or perhaps seized and pulled away into the crowd. Both were luscious slaves. Near us we heard the bleating of a pair of domestic verr. A woman was pulling them along beside her in the throng. They, too, like Feiqa and Tula, had ropes on their necks.

  “It seems hard to make headway now,” I said to Mincon.

  “The press is being held,” he said. “There are several barriers. Then there are separated lines, leading to the great gate. There searches are made, lest it be attempted to carry valuables from the city.”

  “The civilian population is being ejected from the city,” I said.

  “Yes,” he said. “Let us move ahead. One side, one side!”

  We moved slowly, single file, through the crowds.

  “Move aside,” said Mincon.

  “Where are you taking us?” I asked.

  “To the Semnium,” he said.

  “Why?” I asked.

  “It is my intention to obtain for you letters of safety,” he said.

  “I would welcome such,” I said.

  “You need not accept them,” he said, turning about.

  “Why would I not desire such letters?” I asked.

  “The decision will be yours,” he said.

  “I do not understand,” I said.

  “Follow me,” he said, turning about, pressing once again through the crowd.

  We came then to a barrier, several poles on tripods, set across the main way in Torcadino. The crowd was arrested at this barrier. Some pressed back, against those behind them, to keep from being forced against it.

  “Hold,” said a soldier, his spear held across his body, behind the barrier.

  Mincon uttered a password. The barrier was opened. It was a relief to walk freely. Some two hundred yards down the street we could see another segment of the crowd, it, too, doubtless, waiting behind some barrier. We then, in a few Ehn, passed that barrier, and then another.

  To one side, when we crossed the first of these second two barriers, there was a great pile of objects. In it were such things as furniture, cushions, rugs, wall hangings, tapestries, bolts of cloth, robes, clothes, chests, coffers, utensils, vessels, and plates. A soldier went to the pile and emptied a pillow-case out at its foot. I supposed that its spillage, a short, clattering rain of goblets, would scarcely be noticed in such an accumulation. Yet, doubtless, in just such a way had that mountain of artifacts been constructed. It was more than ten feet high. It was cheap booty, probably on the whole to be sold by contract to dealers.

  “Look!” said Boabissia, pointing ahead and to our left, as we crossed an intersection, that beyond the third barrier.

  There, some fifty yards away, kneeling, huddled together against the brick wall of a public building, the wall composed of the flat, narrow bricks common in southern Gorean architecture, was a group of some one hundred to one hundred and fifty females. They were naked. They were chained together by the neck. They were in the keeping of two soldiers, with whips.

  “More booty,” said Mincon.

  “Slaves!” said Boabissia disparagingly, in disgust.

  “Or to be slaves,” said Mincon.

  “Oh,” said Boabissia, frightened.

  “Surely they are slaves,” I said.

  “Many,” said Mincon, “are the women, and daughters, of those who were adherents of Cos in Torcadino. They, thus, have been apprehended for branding and bondage.”

  “I see,” I said.

  “Their seizure lists were prepared weeks ago,” he said.

  “Of course,” I said. An action of the sort now accomplished in Torcadino, in which judicious selections and discriminations are to be made among the civilian populace, necessitates a sensitive preparation.

  We were now closer to the women.

  One of them stood but, immediately, the lash fell upon her, and she returned to her knees, sobbing. “Hands on thighs,” called the soldier, “spread your knees, back straight, chin up!” He pushed up her chin with the coiled whip. She looked straight ahead, tears streaming down her face. “
You will be struck twice more,” he said. She cried out in misery, twice, each time shaken, each time almost thrown forward on her belly to the pavement. The blows were perfunctory, but, I suppose, to the one who receives them, they seemed intensely personal and meaningful. “Position,” said the soldier. She resumed the position to which she had been earlier commanded, promptly and exactly. In her eyes now, with their tears, there was also fear, and contrition. She had offended her captor. She had been punished. Perhaps she was fortunate that she had not been killed. I looked at her. She now knelt very straight. She had learned her lesson. She was to remain kneeling, unless given permission to rise. I did not think she would err again in this fashion. Now that we were closer I could see that the women were all on a single chain, fastened on it by side-loops, of the same chain, secured with sturdy padlocks. It is a simple, practical, inexpensive arrangement. On the upper portion of their left breasts there were numbers written.

  As these women had been apparently marked out for seizure long ago, perhaps months ago, the numbers had doubtless been preassigned. Doubtless there were lists on which their names appeared, each name correlated for convenience with a given number. For example, a given high lady of Torcadino, of a faction favoring Cos, might have had opposite her name on some list the number, say, 908. She would then, after the fall of the city, have been hunted down, stripped, and put on the chain, the number 908 being inscribed on her left breast. For months then, she may have unsuspectingly, with haughty aplomb, in lofty, benign ignorance, gone about her life in her usual way, with her usual power and arrogance, unaware that she figured, however trivially, in the plans of others, others to whom she was no more than a naked female, who had been assigned the number 908. Her fate was already planned, and set. The days of her freedom, in a sense, were already gone. The marking stick was already in existence which would inscribe that number on her fair breast. In a sense she was then, unbeknownst to herself, 908; in a sense, then, a sense of which she was ignorant, she was already a slave.

  This sort of thing is not unusual, of course, the marking out of given women for bondage. Many women on Gor have been scouted, and selected for bondage, weeks or months, perhaps even years, before they are picked up. In a sense, then, they are already, at least in the view of their harvesters, slaves, simply waiting to be gathered in. Too, doubtless, something similar takes place on Earth, before Gorean slavers make their strikes. Many a girl, one supposes, has been noticed, and surreptitiously scouted and assessed, before she is found acceptable and then, at the slaver’s convenience, taken in hand, for transportation and delivery. Where are they noticed? One supposes it could have been anywhere, perhaps in a high school or college class room, perhaps in a corridor or a cafeteria, perhaps on a street, perhaps in a park or on a beach, perhaps on a bus or subway, or waiting at an airport, perhaps in an office, perhaps while getting into or out of a taxi, perhaps while shopping at the local supermarket. Who knows where or when the eyes of the slavers are upon them? If they knew that would they flee behind locked doors, hoping vainly to escape their fate; would they crouch fearfully in closets, waiting for the doors to be opened; or would they stand differently and move ever more beautifully, hoping in shyness, deference and femininity, to suggest their value, and their possible worthiness for a Gorean slave collar?