by John Norman
"Tal," said a grizzled fellow, wearily, appearing through a door to the side. "Tal," said I to him.
"It is quieter outside now," he said.
"It is still raining," I said.
"It is ten tarsks a night," he said. That agreed with the sign.
"That is very expensive," I said.
"True," he said. "I myself would not pay so much."
"Perhaps I will leave now," I said.
"The rain has slacked off?" he said.
"Are these prices negotiable?" I inquired.
"No," said he.
"Are you sure?" I asked.
"Yes," he said. "The keeper, believe me, I know, is a resolute and greedy fellow."
"He is probably not as bad as you think," I said.
"Take my word for it, he is," he said.
"I would like a bath, the sponge, and such, and a bath girl."
"That will add two to your bill," he said.
"Should it not add four?" I asked.
"No bath girl," he said. "Because of the crowding, and the demand, we are using them as inn girls."
"I see," I said.
"You will have to sponge, oil and strigil yourself," he said.
"That seems somewhat barbaric," I said. Also it was hard to reach certain spots on the back.
"Times are hard," he said.
"Where are your baths?" I asked.
"Through there," he said, indicating a passage.
"Where is your paga room?" I asked.
"There," said he, indicating another passage.
"Later," I said. "I would like a girl sent to my room."
"You do not have a room," he said.
"What are the ten tarsks for?" I asked.
"Lodging," he said.
"You do not have rooms?" I asked. "Not separate rooms, for guests," he said. "There are, instead, common areas."
"There are beds there?" I asked, apprehensively.
"Yes, beds," he said.
"I see," I said.
"Surely you know where you are," he said.
"On the Vosk Road," I said, warily.
"And within a hundred pasangs of the river," he said. "No inns around here have beds. You should know that. You seem uninformed."
"Perhaps," I said.
"Perhaps you would like to try one of the luxury inns between Ar and Venna," he said.
"They are over two thousand pasangs away," I said.
"You are surely not going to hold me responsible for their location," he said. "I would not think do doing so," I said.
"Do not be dismayed," he said. "Even in these hard times, the keeper, who has his congenial, noble side, has refused to surrender space lines."
"That is good news," I said. "What are space lines?"
"Most inn," he said, "for your lodging, simply assign you to a large common room, to be shared with others. Quite primitive. Here, at the Crooked Tarn, however, we rent out spaces."
"I see," I said.
"Furthermore, they are clearly marked."
"I am glad to hear that," I said.
"You can accommodate fewer people that way, to be sure," he said, "but then there are fewer fights, and free women almost always prefer to have their own space. Too, with spaces, you can charge more."
"This inn then, in its way, I gather, is a luxury in for this area." "Precisely," he said.
"Perhaps they you can send a girl to my space for the night," I said. "Not for the night," said he, "but only for the quarter of an Ahn." "Your sign," I said.
"I know," he said, "but we are too crowded now for that. On the other hand, we would charge you only three copper tarsks for the time."
"For a quarter of an Ahn?" I said.
"The keeper is a scoundrel," he said.
"I thought you said he had a congenial, noble side."
"He keeps it under control," he said.
"He may not be the scoundrel you think he is," I said.
"No, he is a scoundrel all right."
"Three tarsks seem a good deal for a quarter of an Ahn," I said. I wondered if I might not have greater success with the keeper himself. But I supposed he was not up at this hour.
"We have a debtor slut serving in the paga room," he said. "We could let you have her for an Ahn for a tarsk bit."
"Does she know she is subject to such uses?" I asked.
"No," he said.
"I will take a look at her, and let you know later."
"That would be fourteen copper tarsks," he said.
"I would count twelve," I said. "Ten for lodging, two for the bath and supplies."
"I thought you might want some blankets," he said.
"Of course," I said.
"Fourteen then," he said. I saw this inked on a tab.
From a cabinet to one side, he fetched forth the bath supplies and put them on the counter.
"I will pick up the blankets after I have eaten," I said.
"I will reserve two for you, with your ostrakon," he said.
"I would like a space near the wall, preferably in a corner," I said. "So would everyone else," he said. "Your space is S-3-o7. That is 97, in the south wing, on the third floor."
"Very well," I said.
"Try not to step on any drovers," he said. "They can be ugly fellows when stepped on in the middle of the night."
"I will do my best," I said.
"If you must step on them," he said, "it is well to do it in such a way as to incapacitate them, at least temporarily."
"I understand," I said.
"Do you wish to give your name?" he said.
"No," I said. He did not seem surprised. Many folks coming through here, I gathered, did not identify themselves, or used false names.
"We shall make the bill out to your space then," he said, "S-3-97." He put the identification on the tab.
"Excellent," I said.
"Payment is due before, or at, departure," he said. "To be sure, if the inn grows suspicious, we reserve the right to require payment, to date, upon demand."
"That is reasonable," I said.
"We think so," he said.
"Your prices," I said, "as I think you have admitted, or as much as admitted, are rather expensive."
"They certainly are," he said. "I, for one, would not want to pay them." I looked at him.
"They are not negotiable," he said.
"Are you really sure?" I asked.
"Yes," he said.
"It is hard for me to believe that the keeper is as adamant as you portray him," I said.
"He is, I assure you," said the fellow.
"Surely he cannot be the scoundrel you claim," I said.
"He is," said the fellow. "I know."
"I do not suppose he would be up at this hour," I said.
"But he is," said the fellow.
"Do you think I might speak to him?" I asked.
"You have been doing so," he said. "I am he."
"Oh," I said.
4 The Baths
I closed my eyes in one of the second tubs, the cleaning tubs. There were five first tubs, and five second tubs. These were all large, shallow, round tubs, of clay, covered with porcelain, mounted on open-bricked platforms, each platform about a yard high. In this particular bath, adequate enough, I suppose, for the area, the fires beneath the bricked platforms were stirred, tended and cleaned with long-handled fire rakes. To be sure, it was late, and I suspected that the fires had not been tended since perhaps the eighteenth Ahn. The water, however, happily, was still comfortably warm. They would probably be built up again around the fifth Ahn. I had hung my wet garments on racks about the brick platform, behind the tub. They would probably be dry by now. Each tub was some seven feet in width and some eighteen inches deep. On a hook, behind me, kept for towels, and such, I had slung my scabbard.
More than one fellow, and even a Ubar or two, as history has it, had been attacked in the bath. The baths here, of course, were very simple and primitive. For example, they were heated in the same room, and no
t in virtue of subterranean furnaces, heat from which would normally be conveyed upward through vents and pipes. Here, too, there were no scented pools, no massaging rooms, no steaming rooms. Too, of course, here there were no exercising yards, where one might try a fall or two in wrestling or, say, have a game of catch, either with the large or small ball. Similarly, there were no recreational gardens, no art galleries, no strolling lanes, no arcades of merchants, no physicians' courts, no music rooms, or such.
The baths, in many Gorean cities and towns, are convenient and popular gathering places. One can pick up the latest news and gossip there, for example. Many of these establishments are opulently appointed. Many are capacious and even palatial. Sometimes public funds are lavished upon them, as they are objects of civic pride. Even poor men may feel rich seeking electric sometimes dispense admittance ostraka to the poor. Some of these edifices, as in Turia or Ar, are monumental in size, almost like vaulted, pillared stadiums, with dozens of rooms and pools. One can become lost in them.
Gorean baths are almost always segregated, incidentally, if only be the time of day. This does not mean that bath girls may not be available to tend to a strong male's various wants in the men's baths, or that handsome silk slaves, if they are summoned, may not appear in attendance in the baths of free women. A latticework separated the bathing area from the outer area. It was open now. I heard a fellow stirring in his sleep a few feet away, on the floor, near the bricked platform. Some seven or eight fellows, the latticework open, were sleeping in the bath area. I supposed they preferred the warmth of the baths to their spaces in the unheated levels, or lofts, of the inn. This sort of thing is not unusual in Gorean towns, incidentally, in cold weather, that folks should sleep in the baths. They are often warmer than their houses. They leave in the morning, of course, some of them doubtless to call on their patrons, hoping for a breakfast or an invitation to dinner.
I opened one eye, hearing the outer door, that beyond the latticework, open. There are many types of baths, and ways to take them, for example, depending on the temperatures of the tubs, or pools, and the order in which one uses them. A common fashion is to use the first tub for a time, soaking, and, if one wishes, sponging, and then, emerging, to apply the oil, or oils. These are rubbed well into the skin and then removed with the strigil. There are various forms of strigil, and some of them are ornately decorated. They are usually of metal and almost always of a narrow, spatulate form. With the strigil one scrapes away the residue of oil, and, with it, dirt and sweat, cleaning the pores. One then generally takes the "second tub", which consists of clean water, sponges away any remaining grime, residues of oil and dirt, and such, and then, luxuriating, soaks again.
If one has a bath girl, of course, she does most of these things for sure. Sometimes the services of a bath girl, including massage and love, in whatever modalities the customer may elect, come in the price of the bath, and, at other times, as here, at the Crooked Tarn, I gathered, at least normally, they are extra. Needless to say, bath girls are almost always female slaves. Sometimes, in certain cities, free women, found guilty of crimes, are sentenced to the baths, to serve there as bath girls, subject, too, to the disciplines of such. After a given time there, after it is thought they have learned their lessons, and those of the baths, they are, commonly, routinely enslaved and sold out of the city. It is probably just as well. By that time they will have been, in effect, "spoiled for freedom."
"Ai!" cried a fellow, stepped on by the newcomer.
Another rose up, in the half darkness, and was kicked aside.
I opened my other eye, to consider matters.
It was a swaggering fellow. He was naked, his clothes doubtless being hung on one of the pegs beyond the latticework, in the outer area. Normally, particularly when the baths are in full use, and the air is steamy in their vicinity, that would be done. Mine, which had been wet, I had put behind the bricked platform to dry. He held a sack in one hand, containing, I supposed, his bath supplies, and, in the other, held by their straps, a scabbard and blade, and what appeared to be a flat, rectangular pouch. He had chosen, too, I saw, not to come unarmed to the baths. It is thought to be very bad form, incidentally, to carry weapons in the baths, and, in large public baths, they must often be checked upon entry. On the other hand, I certainly did not blame him for carrying a blade into the baths, particularly in a place such as this. I had done so, myself. I did not know, but I suspected that on the peg outside, by its straps, there might hang a helmet. I recalled the tarn in the inn's tarncot. Though no insignia or harness had been about, it had seemed clearly a war tarn, a warrior's mount. That he had brought the rectangular pouch into the baths with him, as well as the blade, suggested to me that it might be important, too important to be left back at his space, or on the peg outside the latticework. He hung his blade, and the pouch, on one of the tub hooks. "What are you doing?" asked a fellow. He was the only other in the room who was actually utilizing a tub. He had arrived later even than I, and was still soaking in one of the first tubs, indeed, that which was most convenient to the entrance through the latticework. I myself, in my choice of a first tub had, and, indeed, of the second, as well, in which I now reclined, taken those farthest from the entrance. In that way I would have the longest reaction interval possible between someone's entry and their possible arrival in my vicinity.
"I take the first of the first tubs," said the fellow.
"I do not share tubs," said the fellow soaking in the tub, not too pleasantly. Most Goreans, in the baths, at least in their own towns or cities, do share tubs, of course. That is one reason the tubs are so large. To be sure, even in one's own area, one usually shares a tub only with friends or acquaintances. If the baths are crowded, of course, it would be only polite to share with one's fellow citizens. The same customs, of course, generalized even further, normally govern the use of pools, which, on Gor, are normally located at the baths, and, indeed, are usually considered a part of them.
"Nor do I," said the newcomer, climbing to the platform.
"Aiii!" cried the fellow in the tub, seized, and, in a moment, flung over its edge to the slotted wooden bath floor. He struggled to his feet, to see, in the half darkness, lit by a single lamp, and the reddish embers within the bricked platforms, the unsheathed sword now in the newcomer's hand.
"Stir up the fire," said the newcomer.
Hastily the ejected fellow seized a fire rake and poked about within the platform.
"Bring more wood," said the newcomer. "Then tend the fire. Do not leave until it is suitable."
From one of the large barrels to the side, open near the bottom, the ejected fellow scooped out, and returned with, a bucket of wood chips, which he flung into the bricked platform. He then arranged these with the fire rake. He then returned the bucket to its place by the barrel and, from one of the wood bins, to the right, near the barrels, fetched an armload of kindling, then some narrow hardwood logs. In a few moments the chips were burning well. He then added kindling, and then, a bit later, thrust the narrow logs into the platform. He then, the reddish glow of the flames from within the platform reflected on his countenance, looked up, questioningly, frightened, at the newcomer. "Get out," said the newcomer.
Only too eagerly the ejected fellow hurried through the latticework, seized his garments, and took his way from the bath area.
The newcomer then returned his blade to the sheath. He then climbed into the tub. "Ahhh," he grunted, settling back.
I did not think he had behaved well, but then it was not my affair.
Some of the fellows who had been reclining about the platforms then came closer to the platform where the fire was built up. they did take care, however, to leave open a generous passage through which the tub's occupant, when he chose, might make an unimpeded and convenient exit.
Being hungry then, and having, to my mind, soaked long enough, I emerged from the tub, dressed, gathered my things, and the oil and such, and, picking my way among the recumbent bodies, left the bath a
rea.
I did take the opportunity, in leaving, once on the other side of the latticework, to inspect the pegs. In the light of the small lamp there, near the exit, I determined that the helmet bore the insignia of the company of Artemidorus of Cos.
5 The Paga Room; I Stop at the Keeper's Desk
"Stand her," I said. "Closer." I indicated a place on my right, near the low table in the paga room, behind which I sat, cross-legged.
With a sound of chain she came closer.
She then stood there.
I checked the shackling on her ankles. The shackles were lock shackles. They fitted nicely, closely, about her ankles. Their staples were separated by about eighteen inches of chain, more than enough. I pulled her wrists down to me. They wore lock manacles. Their fit was snug, efficient, inescapable. The staples on the manacles were separated by some twelve inches of chain.
"Does my shackling meet with Sir's approval?" she asked.
I did not respond to her. I did release her wrists, and she straightened up. "Is Sir finished with his inspection?" she asked, acidly. She was naked, except for her chains.
"Turn," I said, "slowly, and then again face me."
"I am a free woman," she said, angrily.
"Must a command be repeated?" I inquired.
She turned, slowly, and then, again, faced me.
"What would you likea€”I mean," she said, boldly, haughtily, "to eat, Sir." "You are bold, for a free woman," I said.
"I may not be used," she said, "as I am free." "Is there another free woman serving in the paga room?" I asked. "No," she said.
This must be she, then, of whom the keeper had spoken. I recalled that he had told me that although the use of an inn girl would cost me, in these times, three copper tarsks for only a quarter of an Ahn, I might have the free woman working in the paga room for an Ahn for only a tarsk bit. To be sure, that perhaps overrated her value considerably, as she was only a free woman. Whereas free women, technically, are priceless, they are also, usually, in bed, worthless. They are not worthy of kneeling and humbly holding candles within a thousand pasangs of a slave. To be sure, they commonly hold an inflated opinion of their expertise and desirability. They are no good, however, until they have been imbonded, and have begun, vulnerably and fearfully, to tread, willingly or not, the paths to fulfillment, and ecstasy. The outrageousness of the price, of course, was doubtless to be expected, given the general inflations of the times. I had told him I would let him know later. I would.