by John Norman
"Admit me!" I cried.
Was there no one on the wall?
I looked back, toward the trench. I saw no unusual activity there.
"Ho!" I called, waving the cloth. "Ho!"
There was silence. "Is there no one there?" I called.
For a wild, irrational moment I wondered if the city might have been deserted. But that would not be possible, of course. The garrison and population could not have withdrawn unnoticed. The land side was invested. The countryside swarmed with Cosians, and their mercenaries and allies. The harbor was closed with ships and rafts. What was more likely, of course, was that there were few men on the walls. What defenders there were would presumably be summoned by alarms to threatened points. I feared my position might be noticed at any moment by Cosians, and that I might be trapped against the wall.
"Is there anyone there?" I called. I assumed that at the distance I could not be heard in the Cosian lines.
Suddenly a basket, on a rope, was flung over the wall and lowered.
I hurried to it. In it lay a golden tarn disk.
"You are mad to come in daylight," called a voice from above. "Put your food in the basket, quickly, and be gone! Hope that no one has seen you!"
I stepped back a few yards.
I thrust the white cloth in my belt.
There would be no point in climbing the rope as it could be cut or dropped, or, if I were not welcomed at the height of the wall, I could be cut from it there. "I am Tarl, of Port Kar," I called, "a city enemy to Cos."
"Do you have food?" called a man. I could see his face now, in one of the crenels at the height of the wall, some eighty feet above the embankment at the foot of the wall. It was gaunt, and hard.
"I come from Gnieus Lelius, regent in Ar," I called. "I bear a message for Aemilianus! Admit me!: I saw part of a crossbow at one of the other crenels. There crenels, like many, were wider on the outside then inside, constituting embrasures. This affords a wider range of fire by missile weapons.
"Do you have food?" called a voice.
"No!" I said.
"Go away!" it said. The basket, on its rope, maddeningly, drew upward some yards.
"Admit me!" I called. "Look! I have diplomatic pouch, too, taken from a courier of Artemidorus. It may contain matters of moment! Admit me!"
"It seems you offer us many inducements to admit you," called a fellow. "Admit me!" I cried, urgently. "Do not fire!" I called out to the fellow with the crossbow.
"Go away!" said one of the voices.
"You would be mad to enter this place," said another voice.
"He is a spy, who would see behind our walls, who would inquire into our defenses," said another.
"No!" I said. "Blindfold me, if you will. Take me to Aemilianus!" "You have been seen," said another fellow, the voice drifting down to me. I saw his hand, pointing out, toward the Cosian lines.
I turned about. I could see one or two fellows standing at the height of the trench.
"Your friends call to you," said a voice. "Make it back to them, if you can." I saw the crossbow move. Then, in another crenel, I saw another.
"Do not fire!" I called.
"Spy!" called one of the fellows.
"No!" I said.
"If you were not of Cos, you could not have come through their lines," he called.
"No!" I said.
"How came you through the lines?" called another.
"By trickery," I said.
I heard laughter, unpleasant laughter.
"Admit me!"
"Return to your friends," laughed another fellow.
"I am of Port Kar!" I cried. "I am a courier of Gnieus Lelius. Summon Aemilianus, if no other can admit me!"
"Your friends are in the trench," called a fellow. "They come to support you! perhaps you can make it to the trench. Run!"
I made no move to approach the trench. I looked back. To be sure, there seemed to be movement in the trench. I could see it here and there, from the embankment, in the openings between the wooden coverings.
"Admit me!" I cried. Then I raced, suddenly, to the foot of the wall. Two quarrels struck into the embankment where I had stood.
"Admit me!" I cried upward, from the foot of the wall. It would be hard to be struck from the wall in such a place.
"If you are a friend, show yourself," called a fellow.
"Come out where we can see you, friend," called another voice, enticingly. A quarrel then, suddenly, from the direction of the sapping trench chipped the wall, beside my head.
"They are firing on him!" said someone, from above.
Even before he had spoken two answering quarrels from the wall had leaped toward the trench, one skittering off one of the boulders there, then bounding oddly away, end over end, to the right, another passing half through some of the planking spread over the trench.
I heard the basket, scraping against the wall, dropping down, on the rope. I saw a fellow rise up, in the trench, his bow leveled. I moved, faster, then slower, laterally, watching him, toward the rope. His bolt struck the wall, flashing against it, ahead of me. He had overled his shot. I then had my hands on the rope, above the basket. I swung wildly, kicking away from the wall, and was then, for a moment, half climbing, half being drawn upward. "Fire!" I heard from the trench. Two more quarrels struck near me. "Fire!" I heard from above. I continued upward, sometimes climbing hand over hand, feverishly, as I could, the rope momentarily arrested, at other time then, the rope moving rapidly upward, doing little more than clinging to it, sometimes, again, both climbing and being drawn upward. I swung as I could, too, and kicked away from the wall, that the target of the men in the trench would move in more than one plane. More quarrels struck about me, bursting chips from the wall, some striking me like stinging pebbles, then, at last, after a seemingly endless ascent, hands burning and raw, I was at the height of the wall, some eighty feet above the embankment, and hands reached out, seized me, and pulled me inward, through a crenel. "My thanks!" I gasped.
I was flung to my stomach on the walkway behind the parapet. Hands held me down. My weapons and pouch were removed.
"Strip him and chain him," said a voice.
In a moment, lying on my stomach, on the walkway behind the parapet, I was stripped and chained, my hands manacled behind me, a chain running from the manacles down to join another chain, one strung between the shackles on my ankles.
"I am Tarl, of Port Kar," I said, "a courier, from Gnieus Lelius, regent of Ar!" "Hood him," said a voice. "Use that white cloth."
The white cloth I had brought with me, as a truce flag, apparently doubled, or folded, was put over my head and tied under my chin.
"Kneel him," said the voice.
I was dragged up, to my knees.
"Here are the things he had with him," said a fellow.
Inside the improvised hood I could see very little. I could make our shapes about me.
"Put a rope on his neck," said the voice.
A shape bent toward me. I was neck-roped.
"Release me," I said. "Take me to Aemilianus! The message in my pouch is for him. He may be, too, interested in the contents of the diplomatic pouch. I do not know. I took it from a courier of Artemidorus, south of here, on the Vosk Road, at an inn, the Crooked tarn!"
"Hooded, and on a rope, I do not think you will learn much of our defenses," said a voice.
"Take me to Aemilianus," I said.
"Silence, spy," said a voice.
"I am not a spy!" I said, angrily.
"Let us hang him," said a voice. "Let us show the sleen of Cos that we do not waste time with spies."
"I am not a spy!" I said.
"Good," said another voice, approvingly.
"Fasten the rope here," said a fellow, to my left, "and show them that their spy is thrown over the wall, hanging against the stone, within Ihn of his entry into the city.
"Excellent!" said another.
I felt the rope jerked on my neck.
I felt hands on my arms
.
"They fired upon me! You saw it! I said.
"But they did not hit you," said a fellow.
"Would you rather that they had?" I asked.
"It might have been better for you, had they done so," said another, grimly. I was pulled to my feet.
"The rope is secure," said a voice.
"I came under a flag of truce," I said. "Is this how those of Ar's Station respect the conventions of war?"
The hands of the men were tight upon my arms. I could feel a breeze through the crenel to my left. Through the whiteness of the hood I could make out the opening.
"Hold," said a voice.
I heard the rope being unfastened. It was now, again, a tether.
"We had almost forgotten our honor," said the voice. "We are grateful to you for having recalled it to us. To be sure, it shames us that this should have been done by a sleen of Cos. Yet it does not matter. That it should be remembered is what is most important."
"I had not realized until now," said a man, "that we had suffered so much. I had not realized until now that we had been so deeply hurt, that our wounds were so grievous."
"Behind the trenches I think the Cosians are forming," said a fellow. "It is the morning assault," said another fellow, wearily.
"Stranger," said the voice which had first spoken of honor to me, "know that you have been spared now, in your entry into the city, because of the flag you bore. And tragically, I confess, nearly it was not so. But, now, beneath its aegis, beneath its shelter, guarded within its folds, you are as safe as through ringed by walls of iron. The honor of Ar's Station has it so. I give you thus the option, if you wish it, to return to those of Cos."
"Take me to Aemilianus," I said.
"I think you are a spy," he said. "I am not a spy," I said.
"You understand that if you go now to Aemilianus," he said, "that you forfeit the protection of the flag you bore."
"I understand," I said.
"Take him to Aemilianus," he said.
"Give me something," I said, as I was turned to the side, "if even a shred of my tunic, to cover myself."
"There are many Cosians forming," said a fellow, near the wall.
"You came as a spy," said the voice. "It is to Aemilianus as a caught spy that you will go."
Hands closed tightly on my arms.
"Take him away," said the voice.
11 Aemilianus
"There," said a voice.
I was forced down, on a hard surface, tiles, I thought, on my knees.
The white cloth I had used as the truce flag was removed from my head. I blinked, looking about myself.
I knelt, on tiles, to be sure, before a curule chair, on a stepped dais. To one side of the curule chair, kneeling below it, on one of the broad steps, collared and briefly tunicked, was a pale, blond slave.
"You may leave us, Shirley," said the man on the chair.
"Yes, Master," she said. Her head had been turned to the side, and her eyes had been averted. I was a free man and, had she looked upon me, without permission, she might have been punished. Slave girls do, upon the streets, occasionally look upon stripped free prisoners, sometimes even taunting them, and such, but they are not likely to do so, without permission, beneath the very eyes of their masters.
The name "Shirley' is an Earth-girl name but I suspected that she was not an Earth girl. Her accent, at any rate, did not suggest it. She might have been of Earth, of course. After a few months on Gor it often becomes very difficult to distinguish Earth girls from Gorean girls, at least without a careful examination of their bodies, for example, for fillings in the teeth, or an inquiry, they kneeling before you, into their specific antecedents. Goreans sometimes give Earth-girl names to Gorean girls, as they think of them as excellent slave names. To a Gorean ear names such as "Jean' or "Joan' have an exotic flavor, and are regarded as fit names for slaves brought in from such far-off, mysterious places as «Tennessee» or "Oregon." Such girls, too, coming to understand the sensuous connotations of their names on Gor come to regard them then no longer as common, or plain, names, but, like the Goreans, as thrilling, beautiful names, and come to revel in them, and try to live up to them, as superb slaves. To be sure, they know they wear them now only as slave names, theirs only by the will of a master.
It is true that Earth girls are regarded as slave stock by Goreans, but I think, at least these days, that there is nothing special about this, really. As the girl left I watched her. She was quite thin. Once, I through, she would probably have been much more fully bodied in her beauty. Once she might have been luscious, perhaps even voluptuous. By such signs I conjectured the paucity of rations in Ar's Station. I suppose, however, that she, and others like her, might be quickly enough returned to a former condition of desirability by so simple a means as the restoration of a proper diet, both with respect to quantity and quality. By such means do dealers prepare women, grateful for food, to bring higher prices upon the slave block. Her blond hair, too, had been cropped. In these times, I suspected there would be few unsheared free women. In the case of the slave girls, of course, their hair would simply be taken from them. The hair of the free women, on the other hand, would presumably have been donated, as a contribution to the defense of the city.
"Yes," said the fellow sitting on the curule chair, a strongly built man, through one now seemingly weary, one with a bloodied bandage about his head," she was once quite beautiful."
I turned my attention to the man. He had, with him, on his lap, the diplomatic pouch, opened, and the letter cylinder taken from my pouch. It had been sealed with wax and ribbon, the wax bearing the seal of Gnieus Lelius, regent of Ar. "Are you Aemilianus," I asked, "commander in Ar's Station?" "I am," he said, looking at me.
I glanced toward the retreated slave, who had turned to regard me.
The fellow on the curule chair smiled. "She has dared to look upon you?" "No," I said.
"They are so curious," he said.
I did not respond.
"Shirley!" he called, without turning to look at her.
"Master?" she answered, from near a side door in the back.
"Remind me, tonight," he said, "to whip you."
"Yes, Master!" she sobbed. She turned, then, and fled from the room. "They are women," I said. "They cannot help themselves."
"I do not object that she did what she did," he said. "It is only that, as she has done it, she is to be whipped."
"I see," I said.
"Even in hard times," he said, "it is good to maintain discipline." "Doubtless," I said.
"Do you know where you are?" he asked.
"No," I said.
"You are in the citadel," he said.
"I thought I might be," I said. It seemed a likely place to house the headquarters of the city.
"You are Tarl, a fellow of Port Kar," he asked, "as you told my men upon the wall?"
"I am Tarl," I said, "of Port Kar."
"And you claim to be the regent's courier?" he asked.
"I am the regent's courier," I said. "Why am I still stripped and chained?" "Does it not seem odd to you that the regent should employ as a courier one from Port Kar?"
"Perhaps," I said. "I had delivered letters to him from Dietrich of Tarnburg. Perhaps it then seemed plausible to him that I might similarly serve Ar." "Dietrich, the tarn of Tarnburg?" he asked.
"Perhaps some call him that," I said. "I have never heard him use that expression of himself, nor have I heard it used by those most close to him. I do not even think he would care for it."
"And how does he think of himself?" asked Aemilianus.
"As Dietrich," I said, "Dietrich, of Tarnburg, a soldier, a captain." "Dietrich, of the Silver Tarn?" he asked.
"His standard, it is true," I said, "is that of the Silver Tarn." "He is a mercenary," said Aemilianus, bitterly.
"He now holds Torcadino," I said, "to halt the advance of Cos to the south." "I do not believe that," said Aemilianus.
I then realized the degree o
f isolation of those in Ar's Station. Aemilianus was ignorant of something so basic as the action of Dietrich at Torcadino.
"Surely there is something so that effect in the letter, or letters, from Gnieus Lelius, which I have delivered."
"You, too, are a mercenary," he said, bitterly.
"I have served for fee," I said.
"Anyone's gold can purchase your steel," he said.
"Perhaps not anyone's," I said. Some mercenaries chose their causes with care. "Do you know the contents of the diplomatic pouch, for indeed, it seems to be such."
"No," I said. "As you must have seen, its seal was unbroken."
"Perhaps you were apprised of its contents before it was sealed?"
"No," I said. "I took it from a courier for Artemidorus at the Crooked Tarn, an inn, south on the Vosk Road. I told your men this."
"Do you expect me to believe that?" he asked.
"Where else would I have obtained it?" I asked.
"Perhaps from the hands of Artemidorus himself," said Aemilianus.
"I do not understand," I said.
"I am prepared to believe that you might well not have known its contents," he said.
"Why?" I asked, puzzled. "If you did know its contents," said Aemilianus, "I do not think you would have dared to bring it here."
"What are its contents?" I asked, not much pleased at hearing this. "Its contents are not even in cipher," said Aemilianus. "Does it not seem unusual to you that Artemidorus, a tarnsman, an astute commander, should transmit military documents in so careless and open a fashion?"
"Perhaps he is overconfident or arrogant," I said. "I do not know." "Does it not seem strange to you?" asked Aemilianus.
"Yes," I said, "it does."
"I think," said Aemilianus, "this was intended to come into my hands." "I doubt that," I said. "What does it say?"