I drew forth the Gorean blade from its scabbard and, sitting on the chair of the oar-master, laid it across my knees.
"I am Ubar here," I said.
"Yes," said Telima, "here you are Ubar."
I looked down to the slave at the starboard side, he at the first thwart, who would be first oar.
As I, in the chair of the oar-master, faced the bow of the vessel, he, as slave at the benches, faced its stern, and the chair of the oar-master, that which now served me as Ubar's throne, in this small wooden country lost in the marshes of the Vosk's delta.
We looked upon one another.
Both of his ankles were shackled to a beam running lengthwise of the ship and bolted to the deck; the chain on the shackles ran through the beam itself, through a circular hole cut in the beam and lined with an iron tube; the slaves behind him, as the beam, or beams, passed beneath their thwarts, were similarly secured. The arrangements for the slaves on the larboard side of the barge were, of course, identical.
The man was barefoot, and wore only a rag. His hair was tangled and matted; it had been sheared at the base of his neck. About his neck was hammered an iron collar.
"Master?" he asked.
I looked upon him for some time. And then I said, "How long have you been slave?"
He looked at me, puzzled. "Six years," he said.
"What were you before?" I asked.
"An eel fisher," he said.
"What city?"
"The Isle of Cos," he said.
I looked to another man.
"What is your caste?" I asked.
"I am of the peasants," he said proudly. It was a large, broad man, with yellow, shaggy hair. His hair, too, was sheared at the base of his neck; he, too, wore a collar of hammered iron.
"Do you have a city?" I asked.
"I had a free holding," he said proudly.
"A Home Stone?" I asked.
"Mine own," he said. "In my hut."
"Near what city," I asked, "did your holding lie?"
"Near Ar," said he.
"I have been in Ar," I said.
I looked out, over the marsh. Then I again regarded the eel fisher, who was first oar.
"Were you a good fisherman?" I asked.
"Yes," he said. "I was."
Again I regarded the yellow-haired giant, of the peasants.
"Where is the key to your shackles kept?" I asked.
"It hangs," said he, "in the arm of the chair of the oar-master."
I examined the broad arm of the chair, and, in the right arm, I found a sliding piece of wood, which I slid forward, it extending beyond the chair arm. Inside was a cavity, containing some rags, and binding fiber, and, on a hook, a heavy metal key.
I took the key and unlocked the shackles of the eel fisher and the peasant.
"You are free men," I told them.
They did not get up for a long time, but sat there, looking at me.
"You are free men," I said, "no longer slaves."
Suddenly, with a great laugh, the yellow-haired giant, the peasant, leaped to his feet. He struck himself on the chest. "I am Thurnock!" he cried. "Of the Peasants!"
"You are, I expect," I said, "a master of the great bow."
"Thurnock," he said, "draws the great bow well."
"I knew it would be so," said I.
The other man had now stood easily, stepping from the bench.
"My name is Clitus," he said. "I am a fisherman. I can guide ships by the stars. I know the net and trident."
"You are free," I said.
"I am your man," cried the giant.
"I, too," said the fisherman. "I, too, am your man."
"Find among the bound slaves, the rencers," I said, "the one who is called Ho-Hak."
"We shall," said they.
"And bring him before me," I said.
"We shall," said they.
I would hold court.
Telima, kneeling bound below me, on the left, the binding fiber on her throat, tethered to the mooring cleat, looked up at me. "What will be the pleasure of my Ubar with his captives?" she asked.
"I will sell you all in Port Kar," I said.
She smiled. "Of course," she said, "you may do what you please with us."
I looked upon her in fury.
I held the blade of the short sword at her throat. Her head was up. She did not flinch.
"Do I so displease my Ubar?" she asked.
I slammed the blade back in the sheath.
I seized her by the arms and lifted her, bound, to face me. I looked down into her eyes. "I could kill you," I said. "I hate you." How could I tell her that it had been by her instrumentality that I had been destroyed in the marshes. I felt myself suddenly transformed with utter fury. It was she who had done this to me, who had cost me myself, teaching me my ignobility and my cowardice, who had broken the image, casting it into the mud of the marsh, that I had for so many years, so foolishly, taken as the substance and truth of my own person. I had been emptied; I was now a void, into which I could feel the pourings, the dark flowings, of resentment and degradation, of bitterness and self-recrimination, of self-hatred. "You have destroyed me!" I hissed to her, and flung her from me down the steps of the tiller deck. The woman with the child screamed, and the boy cried out. Telima rolled and then, jerked up short, half choked, by the tether, she lay at the foot of the stairs. She struggled again to her knees. There were now tears in her eyes.
She looked up at me. She shook her head. "You have not been destroyed," said she, "my Ubar."
Angrily I took again my seat on the chair of the oar-master.
"If any has been destroyed," said she, "it was surely I."
"Do not speak foolishly," I commanded her, angrily. "Be silent!"
She dropped her head. "I am at the pleasure of my Ubar," she said.
I was ashamed that I had been brutal with her, but I would not show it. I knew, in my heart, that it had been I, I myself, who had betrayed me, I who had fallen short of the warrior codes, I who had dishonored my own Home Stone, and the blade I bore. It was I who was guilty. Not she. But everything in me cried out to blame some other for the treacheries and the defections that were my own. And surely she had most degraded me of all. Surely, of all, she had been the most cruel, the one before whom I had groveled most slave. It was in my mouth, black and swollen, that she had put the kiss of the Mistress.
I dismissed her from my mind.
Thurnock, the peasant, and Clitus, the fisherman, approached, holding between them Ho-Hak, bound hand and foot, the heavy collar of the galley slave, with its dangling chain, still riveted about his neck.
They placed him on his knees, on the rowing deck, before me.
I removed my helmet.
"I knew it would be you," he said.
I did not speak.
"There were more than a hundred men," said Ho-Hak.
"You fought well, Ho-Hak," said I, "on the rence island, with only an oar-pole."
"Not well enough," said he. He looked up at me, from his bonds. His great ears leaned a bit forward. "Were you alone?" he asked.
"No," I said. I nodded to Telima, who, head down, knelt at the foot of the stairs.
"You did well, Woman," said Ho-Hak.
She lifted her head, tears still in her eyes. She smiled at him.
"Why is it," asked Ho-Hak, "that she who aided you kneels bound at your feet?"
"I do not trust her," I said, "nor any of you."
"What are you going to do with us?" asked Ho-Hak.
"Do you not fear that I will throw you bound to tharlarion?" I asked.
"No," said Ho-Hak.
"You are a brave man," I said. I admired him, so calm and strong, though before me naked and bound, at my mercy.
Ho-Hak looked up at me. "It is not," he said, "that I am a particularly brave man. It is rather that I know you will not throw me to tharlarion."
"How can you know that?" I asked.
"No man who fights a hundred," said he, "wit
h only a girl at his side, could act so."
"I shall sell you all in Port Kar!" I cried.
"Perhaps," said Ho-Hak, "but I do not think so."
"But I have won you and your people, and all these slaves," I told him, "that I might have my vengeance on you, for making me slave, and come rich with cargo to Port Kar!"
"I expect that is not true," said Ho-Hak.
"He did it for Eechius," said Telima.
"Eechius was killed on the island," said Ho-Hak.
"Eechius had given him rence cake when he was bound at the pole," said Telima. "It was for him that he did this."
Ho-Hak looked at me. There were tears in his eyes. "I am grateful, Warrior," said he.
I did not understand his emotion.
"Take him away!" I ordered Thurnock and Clitus, and they dragged Ho-Hak from my presence, taking him back somewhere on the second barge, among other bound slaves.
I was angry.
Ho-Hak had not begged for mercy. He had not demeaned himself. He had shown himself a dozen times more man than me.
I hated rencers, and all men, saving perhaps the two who served me.
Ho-Hak had been bred a slave, a degraded and distorted exotic, and had served even in the darkness of the stinking rowing holds of the cargo vessels of Port Kar, and yet, before me, he had shown himself a dozen times more man than me.
I hated him, and rencers.
I looked at the slaves chained at the benches. Any of them, in rags, sheared and shackled, beaten and half-starved, was greater than I.
I was no longer worthy of the love of two women I had known, Talena, who had once foolishly consented to be the Free Companion of one now proved to be ignoble and coward, and Vella, Elizabeth Cardwell, once of Earth, who had mistakenly granted her love to one worthy rather only of her contempt and scorn. And, too, I was no longer worthy of the respect of my father, Matthew Cabot, Administrator of Ko-ro-ba, and of my teacher at arms, the Older Tarl, nor of he who had been my small friend, Torm, the Scribe. I could never again face those I had known, Kron of Tharna, Andreas of Tor, Kamchak of the Tuchuks, Relius and Ho-Sorl of Ar, none of them. All would despise me now.
I looked down on Telima.
"What will you do with us, my Ubar?" she asked.
Did she mock me?
"You have taught me," I said, "that I am of Port Kar."
"You have perhaps, my Ubar," said she, "misunderstood the lesson."
"Be silent!" I cried.
She put down her head. "If any here," she said, "is of Port Kar, it is surely Telima."
Furious at her mockery, I leaped from the chair of the oar-master and struck her with the back of my hand, snapping her head to one side.
I felt shamed, agonized, but I would show nothing.
I returned to my seat.
There was a streak of blood across her face where her lip had been cut by her teeth.
She put down her head again. "If any," she whispered, "surely Telima."
"Be silent!" I cried.
She looked up. "Telima," she whispered, "is at her Ubar's pleasure."
I looked at Thurnock and Clitus.
"I am going to Port Kar," I said.
Thurnock crossed his great arms on his chest, and nodded his head. Clitus, too, gave assent to this.
"You are free men," I said. "You need not accompany me."
"I," said Thurnock, in a booming voice, "would follow you even to the Cities of Dust."
"And I," said Clitus, "I, too."
Thurnock was blue-eyed, Clitus gray-eyed. Thurnock was a huge man, with arms like the oars of the great galleys; Clitus was slighter, but he had been first oar; he would have great strength, beyond what it might seem.
"Build a raft," I said, "large enough for food and water, and more than two men, and what we might find here that we might wish to take with us."
They set about their work.
I sat, alone, on the great chair of the oar-master. I put my head in my hands.
I was Ubar here, but I found the throne a bitter one. I would have exchanged it all for Tarl Cabot, the myth, and the dream, that had been taken from me.
* * * *
When I raised my head from my hands I felt hard and cruel.
I was alone, but I had my arm, and its strength, and the Gorean blade.
Here, on this wooden land lost in the delta marshes, I was Ubar.
I knew now, as I had not before, what men were. I had in misery learned this in myself. And I now saw myself a fool for having espoused codes, for having set above myself ideals.
What could there be that could stand above the steel blade?
Was not honor a sham, loyalty and courage a deceit, an illusion of the ignorant, a dream of fools?
Was not the only wise man he who observed carefully and when he might took what he could?
The determinants of the wise man could not be such phantoms.
There was only gold, and power, and the bodies of women, and steel.
I was a strong man.
I was such that might make a place for himself in a city such as Port Kar.
"The raft is ready," said Thurnock, his body gleaming sweat, wiping a great forearm across his face.
"We found food and water," said Clitus, "and some weapons, and gold."
"Good," I said.
"There is much rence paper," said Thurnock. "Did you want us to put some on board?"
"No," I said. "I do not want rence paper."
"What of slaves?" asked Thurnock.
I looked to the prow of the first barge, where was bound the lithe, dark-haired beauty, she who had been so marvelously legged in the brief rence tunic. Then I looked to the second prow, and the third, where were tied the large girl, blond and gray-eyed, who had held marsh vine against my arm, and the shorter girl, dark-haired, who had carried a net over her left shoulder. These had danced their insolence, their contempt of me. They had spat upon me, when I had been bound helpless, and then whirled away laughing into the circle of the dance.
I laughed.
They had earned for themselves the chains and brands of slave girls.
Thurnock and Clitus regarded me.
"Bring the girls at second and third prow," I told them.
A grin broke across the face of Thurnock. "They are beauties," he said, shaking that great shaggy head of yellow hair, sheared at the base of his neck. "Beauties!"
He and Clitus went to fetch the slaves.
I myself turned and walked slowly down the gangway between the rowers' benches, and then climbed the stairs to the foredeck of the barge.
The girl, her back bound over the curved prow, facing forward, heard me, but could not see me. My head, as I stood on the foredeck, was about a foot below her fastened ankles. Her wrists, facing me, had been bound cruelly behind the prow.
"Who is it?" she asked.
I said nothing.
"Please," she begged. "Who is it?"
"Be silent," said I, "Slave."
A small cry of anguish escaped her.
With a movement of the Gorean blade I cut the fiber at her ankles.
Then, standing on the rail of the foredeck, my left hand on the prow, I cut first the fiber binding her at the throat, and then that binding her at the waist. Then, resheathing my sword, I eased her, wrists still bound, down the prow, until her feet at last stood on the rail, on which, beside her, I stood.
I turned her about.
She saw me, the black, swollen mouth, the eyes, and screamed helplessly.
"Yes," I said, "it is I."
Then, cruelly, I took her head in my hands and pressed my lips upon hers.
Never had I seen a woman so overcome with utter terror.
I laughed at her misery.
Then, contemptuously, I removed my blade from the sheath. I put the point under her chin, lifting her head. Once, when I had been bound at the pole, she had pushed up my head, that she might better assess the features of a slave. "You are a beauty, aren't you?" I commented.
>
Her eyes looked at me with terror.
I dropped the point to her throat, and she turned away her head, shutting her eyes. For a moment I let her feel the point in the delicacy of her throat, then I dropped the blade and slashed the binding fiber that fastened her wrists together about the prow.
She fell to the foredeck, on her hands and knees.
I leapt to the deck before her.
She struggled to her feet, half crouching, half mad with fear, and the pain from being bound at the prow.
With the point of my blade I pointed to the deck.
She shook her head, and turned, and ran to the rail, and held it, looking over.
A huge tharlarion, seeing the image on the water, half rose from the marsh, jaws clashing, and then dropped back into the water. Two or three more tharlarion then churned there beneath her.
She threw back her head and screamed.
She turned and faced me, shaking her head.
The tip of my blade still pointed inexorably to a place on the deck.
"Please!" she wept.
The blade did not move.
She came and stood before me.
The blade still did not move, but continued to point downward.
"No," she said. "Please, no!"
"On your knees," I said.
She knelt before me.
"Now," said I, "place your hands upon my thighs."
She did so, trembling.
"And look up at me, as you did at the pole."
She looked up at me, in terror.
"You do not seem as amused now, or as insolent," I said. "Are you?" I asked.
"No," she whispered.
I saw that she was afraid to meet my eyes.
"You will learn to strive desperately to please men," I told her. "Your life will depend upon it, on how pleasing you are." I regarded her. "Do you understand?"
"Yes," she whispered.
"You may now beseech me, in all earnestness," I informed her, "for permission to give me pleasure."
"Please let me pleasure you," she whispered.
And in that moment I saw, to my interest, a sudden, startling transformation in her eyes. She had suddenly understood, kneeling thusly before me, what it might be, to be a female slave, to be at the beck and call of a male, to serve, to be his.
How helpless she was.
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