I slipped the golden armlet from her arm.
There were tears in her eyes, but she did not protest.
I unknotted the binding fiber about her throat, and took from my pouch her collar.
I showed it to her.
In the dim light she read the engraving. "I belong to Bosk," she said.
"I did not know you could read," I said. Midice, Thura, Ula were all, as is common with rence girls, illiterate.
Telima looked down.
I snapped the collar about her throat.
She looked up at me. "It is a long time since I have worn a steel collar," she said.
I wondered how she had, whether in her escape or afterwards in the islands, removed her first collar. Ho-Hak, I recalled, still wore the heavy collar of the galley slave. The rencers had not had the tools to remove it. Telima, a clever girl, had probably discovered and stolen the key to her collar. Ho-Hak's collar had been riveted about his throat.
"Telima," said I, thinking of Ho-Hak, "why was Ho-Hak so moved, when together we spoke of the boy Eechius?"
She said nothing.
"He would know him, of course," said I, "from the island."
"He was his father," said Telima.
"Oh," I said.
I looked down at the golden armlet I held in my hand. I put it on the floor and then, with the pair of slave bracelets I had removed from Midice, following her dance, I secured Telima to the kitchen's slave ring, fastened in its floor. I braceleted the left wrist first, passed the chain through the ring, and then braceleted the right wrist. I then picked up the golden armlet, and again regarded it.
"It is strange," I said, "that a rence girl should have a golden armlet."
Telima said nothing.
"Rest," said I, "Kettle Slave, for tomorrow you will doubtless have much to do."
At the door of the kitchen I turned again to face her. For a long time, not speaking, we looked at one another. Then she asked, "—Is Master pleased?"
I did not respond.
In the other room I tossed the golden armlet to Midice, who caught it and slipped it on her arm with a squeal of delight, holding up her arm, showing the armlet.
"Do not chain me," she wheedled.
But, with the ankle rings, taken from her following the dance, I secured her. I put one ring about the slave ring near which she had served me, and the other ring about her left ankle.
"Sleep, Midice," I said, covering her with the love furs.
"Master?" she asked.
"Rest," I said, "Sleep."
"I have pleased you?" she asked.
"Yes," I told her, "you have pleased me." Then I touched her head, moving back some of the dark hair. "Now sleep," said I, "now sleep, lovely Midice."
She snuggled down in the love furs.
I left the room, going down the stairs.
I found myself alone in the darkness. It was about an Ahn, I conjectured, before daylight. I trod the narrow walkway lining the canal. Then, suddenly, falling to my hands and knees, I threw up into the dark waters. I heard one of the giant canal urts twist in the water somewhere beneath me. I threw up again, and then stood up, shaking my head. I had had too much paga, I told myself.
I could smell the sea, but I had not yet seen her.
The buildings lining the canals on each side were dark, but, here and there, in the side of one, near a window, was a torch. I looked at the brick, the stone, watched the patterns and shadows playing on the walls of the buildings of Port Kar.
Somewhere I heard the squealing and thrashing of two of the giant urts fighting in the water, among the floating garbage.
My steps took me again to the paga tavern where I had begun this night.
I was alone, and miserable. I was cold. There was nothing of worth in Port Kar, nor in all the worlds of all the suns.
I pushed open the doors of the paga tavern.
The musicians, and the dancer, had gone, long ago I supposed.
There were not so many men in the paga tavern now, and those there were seemed mostly lost in stupor. Here and there some lay among the tables, their tunics soiled with paga. Others lay, wrapped in ship's cloaks, against the wall. Some two or three still sat groggily at the tables, staring at goblets half-filled with paga. The girls, saving those who served still in the curtained alcoves, must have been somewhere chained for the night, probably in a slave room off the kitchen. The proprietor, when I entered, lifted his head from the counter, behind which hung a great bottle of paga in its pouring sling.
I threw down a copper tarn disk and he tilted the great bottle.
I took my goblet of paga to a table and sat down, cross-legged, behind it.
I did not want to drink. I wanted only to be alone. I did not even want to think. I wanted only to be alone.
I heard weeping from one of the alcoves.
It irritated me. I did not wish to be disturbed. I put my head in my hands and leaned forward, elbows on the table.
I hated Port Kar, and all that was of it. And I hated myself, for I, too, was of Port Kar. That I had learned this night. I would never forget this night. All that was in Port Kar was rotten and worthless. There was no good in her.
The curtain from one of the alcoves was flung apart. There stood there, framed in its conical threshold, Surbus, he who was a captain of Port Kar. I looked upon him with loathing, despising him. How ugly he was, with his fierce beard, the narrow eyes, the ear gone from the right side of his face. I had heard of him, and well. I knew him to be pirate; and I knew him to be slaver, and murderer, and thief; I knew him to be a cruel and worthless man, abominable, truly of Port Kar and, as I looked upon him, the filth and rottenness, I felt nothing but disgust.
In his arms he held, stripped, the bound body of a slave girl. It was she who had served me the night before, before Surbus, and his cutthroats and pirates, had entered the tavern. I had not much noticed her. She was thin, and not very pretty. She had blond hair, and, as I recalled, blue eyes. She was not much of a slave. I had not paid her much attention. I remembered that she had begged me to protect her and that I, of course, had refused.
Surbus threw the girl over his shoulder and went to the counter.
"I am not pleased with her," he said to the proprietor.
"I am sorry, noble Surbus," said the man. "I shall have her beaten."
"I am not pleased with her!" cried Surbus.
"You wish her destroyed?" asked the man.
"Yes," said Surbus, "destroyed."
"Her price," said the proprietor, "is five silver tarsks."
From his pouch Surbus placed five silver tarsks, one after the other, on the counter.
"I will give you six," I said to the proprietor.
Surbus scowled at me.
"I have sold her for five," said the proprietor, "to this noble gentleman. Do not interfere, Stranger, this man is Surbus."
Surbus threw back his head and laughed. "Yes," he said, "I am Surbus."
"I am Bosk," I said, "from the Marshes."
Surbus looked at me, and then laughed. He turned away from the counter now, taking the girl from his shoulder and holding her, bound, in his arms. I saw that she was conscious, and her eyes red from weeping. But she seemed numb, beyond feeling.
"What are you going to do with her?" I asked.
"I am going to throw her to the urts," said Surbus.
"Please," she whispered, "please, Surbus."
"To the urts!" laughed Surbus, looking down at her.
She closed her eyes.
The giant urts, silken and blazing-eyed, living mostly on the garbage in the canals, are not stranger to bodies, both living and dead, found cast into their waters.
"To the urts!" laughed Surbus.
I looked upon him, Surbus, slaver, pirate, thief, murderer. This man was totally evil. I felt nothing but hatred, and an ugly, irrepressible disgust of him.
"No," I said.
He looked at me, startled.
"No," I said, and moved the blade from t
he sheath.
"She is mine," he said.
"Surbus often," said the proprietor, "thus destroys a girl who has not pleased him."
I regarded them both.
"I own her," said Surbus.
"That is true," said the proprietor hastily. "You saw yourself her sale. She is truly his slave, his to do with as he wishes, duly purchased."
"She is mine," said Surbus. "What right have you to interfere?"
"The right of one of Port Kar," I said, "to do what pleases him."
Surbus threw the girl from him and, with a swift, clean motion, unsheathed his blade.
"You are a fool, Stranger," said the proprietor. "That is Surbus, one of the finest swords in Port Kar."
Our discourse with steel was brief.
Then, with a cry of hatred and elation, my blade, parallel to the ground, that it not wedge itself between the ribs of its target, passed through his body. I kicked him from the blade and withdrew the bloodied steel.
The proprietor was looking at me, wide-eyed.
"Who are you?" he asked.
"Bosk," I told him. "Bosk from the Marshes."
Several of the men around the tables, roused by the flash of steel, had awakened.
They sat there, startled.
I moved the blade in a semicircle, facing them. None of them moved against me.
I tore off some of his tunic and cleaned the blade on it.
He lay there on his back, blood moving from his mouth, the chest of his tunic scarlet, fighting for breath.
I looked down on him. I had been of the warriors. I knew he would not live long.
I felt no compunction. He was totally evil.
I went to the slave girl and cut the binding fiber that fastened her ankles and wrists. The chains which she had worn while serving paga, and when she had asked for my protection, had been removed, doubtless while she had been in the alcove, sometime after I had left the tavern, that she might have better rendered Surbus, Captain of Port Kar, the dues of the slave girl. They had been serving bracelets, with two lengths of chain, each about a foot long, which linked them.
I looked about the room. The proprietor stood back, behind his counter. None of the men had arisen from the tables, though many were of the crew of Surbus himself.
I looked at him.
His eyes were on me, and his hand, weakly, lifted. His eyes were agonized. He coughed blood. He seemed to want to speak, but could not do so.
I looked away from him.
I resheathed the blade.
It was good that Surbus lay dying. He was evil.
I looked upon the slave girl. She was a poor sort. She was scrawny, and thin faced, with narrow shoulders. Her blue eyes were pale. The hair was thin, stringy. She was a poor slave.
To my surprise she went and knelt next to Surbus, and held his head. He was looking at me. Again he tried to speak.
"Please," said the girl to me, looking up at me, holding the head of the dying man.
I looked upon them both, puzzled. He was evil. She, perhaps, was mad. Did she not understand that he would have hurled her bound to the urts in the canals?
His hand lifted again, even more weakly, extended to me. There was agony in his eyes. His lips moved, but there was no sound.
The girl looked up at me, and said, "Please, I am too weak."
"What does he want?" I asked, impatient. He was pirate, slaver, thief, murderer. He was evil, totally evil, and I felt for him only disgust.
"He wants to see the sea," she said.
I said nothing.
"Please," she said, "I am too weak."
I bent and put the arm of the dying man about my shoulders and, lifting him, with the girl's help, went back through the kitchen of the tavern and, one by one, climbed the high, narrow stairs to the top of the building.
We came to the roof, and there, near its edge, holding Surbus between us, we waited. The morning was cold, and damp. It was about daybreak.
And then the dawn came and, over the buildings of Port Kar, beyond them, and beyond the shallow, muddy Tamber, where the Vosk empties, we saw, I for the first time, gleaming Thassa, the Sea.
The right hand of Surbus reached across his body and touched me. He nodded his head. His eyes did not seem pained to me, nor unhappy. His lips moved, but then he coughed, and there was more blood, and he stiffened, and then, his head falling to one side, he was only weight in our arms.
We lowered him to the roof.
"What did he say?" I asked.
The girl smiled at me. "Thank you," she said. "He said Thank you."
I stood up, wearily, and looked out over the sea, gleaming Thassa.
"She is very beautiful," I said.
"Yes," said the girl, "yes."
"Do the men of Port Kar love the sea?" I asked.
"Yes," she said, "they do."
I looked on her.
"What will you do now?" I asked. "Where will you go?"
"I do not know," she said. She dropped her head. "I will go away."
I put out my hand and touched her cheek. "Do not do that," I said. "Follow me."
There were tears in her eyes. "Thank you," she said.
"What is your name?" I asked.
"Luma," she said.
I, followed by the slave Luma, left the roof, descended the long, narrow stairs.
In the kitchen we met the proprietor. "Surbus is dead," I told him. He nodded. The body, I knew, would be disposed of in the canals.
I pointed to Luma's collar. "Key," I said.
The proprietor brought a key and removed his steel from her throat.
She fingered her throat, now bare, perhaps for the first time in years, of the encircling collar.
I would buy her another, when it was convenient, suitably engraved, proclaiming her mine.
We left the kitchen.
In the large central room of the tavern, we stopped.
I thrust the girl behind me.
There, waiting for us, standing, armed, were seventy or eighty men. They were seamen of Port Kar. I recognized many of them. They had come with Surbus to the tavern the night before. They were portions of his crews.
I unsheathed my blade.
One of the men stood forward, a tall man, lean, young, but with a face that showed the marks of Thassa. He had gray eyes, large, rope-rough hands.
"I am Tab," he said. "I was second to Surbus."
I said nothing, but watched them.
"You let him see the sea?" said Tab.
"Yes," I said.
"Then," said Tab, "we are your men."
10
The Council of Captains
I took my seat in the Council of the Captains of Port Kar.
It was now near the end of the first passage hand, that following En'Kara, in which occurs the Spring Equinox. The Spring Equinox, in Port Kar, as well as in most other Gorean cities, marks the New Year. In the chronology of Ar it was now the year 10,120. I had been in Port Kar for some seven Gorean months.
None had disputed my right to the seat of Surbus. His men had declared themselves mine.
Accordingly I, who had been Tarl Cabot, once a warrior of Ko-ro-ba, the Towers of the Morning, sat now in the council of these captains, merchant and pirate princes, the high oligarchs of squalid, malignant Port Kar, Scourge of Gleaming Thassa.
In the council, in effect, was vested the stability and administration of Port Kar.
Above it, nominally, stood five Ubars, each refusing to recognize the authority of the others: Chung, Eteocles, Nigel, Sullius Maximus and Henrius Sevarius, claiming to be the fifth of his line.
The Ubars were represented on the council, to which they belonged as being themselves Captains, by five empty thrones, sitting before the semicircles of curule chairs on which reposed the captains. Beside each empty throne there was a stool from which a Scribe, speaking in the name of his Ubar, participated in the proceedings of the council. The Ubars themselves remained aloof, seldom showing themselves for fear of assassinati
on.
A scribe, at a large table before the five thrones, was droning the record of the last meeting of the council.
There are commonly about one hundred and twenty captains who form the council, sometimes a few more, sometimes a few less.
Admittance to the council is based on being master of at least five ships. Surbus had not been a particularly important captain, but he had been the master of a fleet of seven, now mine. These five ships, pertinent to council membership, may be either the round ships, with deep holds for merchandise, or the long ships, ram-ships, ships of war. Both are predominantly oared vessels, but the round ship carries a heavier, permanent rigging, and supports more sail, being generally two-masted. The round ship, of course, is not round, but it does have a much wider beam to its length of keel, say, about one to six, whereas the ratios of the war galleys are about one to eight.
The five ships, it might be added, must be of at least medium class. In a round ship this means she would be able, in Earth figures, to freight between approximately one hundred and one hundred and fifty tons below decks. I have calculated this figure from the Weight, a Gorean unit of measurement based on the Stone, which is about four Earth pounds. A Weight is ten Stone. A medium-class round ship should be able to carry from 5,000 to 7,500 Gorean Weight. The Weight and the Stone, incidentally, are standardized throughout the Gorean cities by Merchant Law, the only common body of law existing among the cities. The official "Stone," actually a solid metal cylinder, is kept, by the way, near the Sardar. Four times a year, on a given day in each of the four great fairs held annually near the Sardar, it is brought forth with scales, that merchants from whatever city may test their own standard "Stone" against it. The "Stone" of Port Kar, tested against the official "Stone" at the Sardar, reposed in a special fortified building in the great arsenal, which complex was administered by agents of the Council of Captains.
Medium class for a long ship, or ram-ship, is determined not by freight capacity but by keel length and width of beam; a medium-class long ship, or ram-ship, will have a keel length of from eighty to one hundred and twenty feet Gorean; and a width of beam of from ten to fifteen feet Gorean. The Gorean foot, interestingly, is almost identical to the Earth foot. Both measures doubtless bear some distant relation to the length of the foot of an adult human male. The Gorean foot is, in my estimation, just slightly longer than the Earth foot; based on the supposition that each of its ten Horts is roughly one and one-quarter inches long, I would give the Gorean foot a length of roughly twelve and one-half inches, Earth measure. Normally, incidentally, in giving measures, the Earth foot, unless otherwise specified, should be understood. It seems pertinent, however, in this instance, to state the ratios in Gorean feet, rather than translate into English measures, where the harmony of the proportions would be obscured. As in the case of the official "Stone," so, too, at the Sardar is a metal rod, which determines the Merchant Foot, or Gorean foot, as I have called it. Port Kar's Merchant Foot, like her "Stone," is kept in the arsenal, in the same building as her "Stone."
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