Renegades of Gor coc-23

by John Norman

  "It is an intelligence report," he said. "It gives the numbers, and positions, of the forces of Ar."

  "May I inquire where they are?" I asked. I had pondered this many times. "I will tell you where they really are," said Aemilianus. "They are moving by forced marches to our relief."

  "By what route?" I asked, puzzled.

  "North on the Vitkel Aria," he said.

  "No," I said. "I came by the Vitkel Aria. They are not there. No one has seen them for hundreds of pasangs from here."

  Aemilianus smiled.

  "May I ask where the report claims them to be?"

  "The report claims they are in winter quarters at Holmesk, one hundred pasangs south of the Vosk."

  "In winter quarters," I asked. "While Cos is at Torcadion, and Ar's Station under siege?"

  "Y9u see the absurdity of the report," said Aemilianus.

  "Yes," I said, awed.

  "Had you known the contents of the report perhaps you would have declined to carry it," he smiled.

  I almost rose in the chains, but I was pushed down, back onto my knees. "I submit, Captain," I said, urgently, "that incredible though it seems that the report may be accurate." The situation had suddenly begun to assume an alarming shape in my mind. I was confident, as Aemilianus was not, that the report was authentic, even if, in some respects, it might not be reliable. Aemilianus laughed, and, so, too, did several of the men about.

  "Where are the relief forces of Ar?" I asked. "Where?"

  Aemilianus looked at me, angrily.

  "Even though you are isolated her, and invested," I said, "surely you must understand that the siege of Ar's Station can be no secret. You must realize that a relief force would have been dispatched, that it should have arrived by now. If you are so sanguine about your prospects, I suspect that your men, those out on the walls, are not. I have been among them. They are hungry. They are gaunt and drawn. They are not buoyed by optimism. I suspect that they, even if you do not, realize that any relieving force should have been here by now, and long ago!"

  I heard a sword, half drawn, behind me. Then it was returned, angrily, to its sheath.

  "The report is inaccurate," said Aemilianus. "It is not even intelligently conceived. It gives such numbers for Ar's troops at Holmesk as would mean that the main might of Ar is in the north, which is unthinkable. Such forces would not be needed to raise the siege. Ar, too, in such a case, would be in effect undefended, her territories, if not herself, at the mercies of Salarians, Travians, Tharnans, even men of small cities like Tarnburg and Hockberg. "There could be treachery," I said.

  There was an angry murmur from those behind me.

  "You have been abandoned," I said.

  "Let me cut his throat," said a man behind me.

  "All that stands between Ar and Cos," I said, "is the presence of Dietrich of Torcadino, where he has seized Cosian supplies and engines."

  "He could not take Torcadino," said Aemilianus. "He has too few men." "It was done by stealth, through the aquaducts," I said.

  "He would have too few to hold it," said Aemilianus.

  "The Cosian siege train was captured within Torcadin," I said. "The city itself, as last I heard, though invested, has not been attacked. Indeed, the Cosian main forces, which I assure you are not inferior in numbers to those of Ar, are probably now in winter quarters, perhaps a tenth of them in the vicinity of Torcadino. The situation of Cos was clear. She could not proceed without the siege train and it would take some months to replace it."

  "And what do you suppose will eventuate? asked Aemilianus.

  "I do not know," I said. "Once Cos has engines again she might attack Torcadino, if only to punish Dietrich. If I were Myron, Polemarkos of Temos, he in command of the Cosian forces on the continent, I would myself turn toward Ar, wasting no time at Torcadino, a subsidiary objective. Dietrich would then escape, but he would not have the forces necessary to do more than harry the Cosian advance to Ar, and, once those forces are out of Torcadino, they might well be hunted down and dealt with, with only a fraction of the might of Cos."

  "Why would Dietrich of Tarnburg risk this perilous intervention?" asked Aemilianus.

  "There are valuables, women, and such, in Torcadino," I said.

  "And such may be found in a hundred towns and cities," said Aemilianus. "He has no love for either Ar or Cos," I said. "He prefers the victory of neither. Any such victory, with its achieved hegemony, might end, and would surely threaten, the existence of the free companies. Too, many fear in it the destruction of social openness, of pluralism and freedom, as it now exists on Gor."

  "And do you share such sentiments?" asked Aemilianus.

  "I would not look forward eagerly to a world dominated by either a Marlenus of Ar or a Lurius of Jad."

  "Such would bring peace," said Aemilianus.

  "The peace of chains," I said.

  "Is not peace more important than anything else?" he asked.

  "No," I said.

  "I find it hard to believe that your own interests in these matters is so abstract and elevated."

  I did not respond to him. He need not know the secret motivations, which I could confide to few, underlying my original journey to Ar, that journey in which I had been detained at Torcadino. He need not know, for example, the contents of the secret papers which I had obtained at Brundisium last Se'Kara, papers which I had swiftly burned. In those papers had been clear the treason of one who currently stood high in Ar.

  "I shall now explain to you the situation as it actually exists," said Aemilianus. "The main Cosian forces are here, at Ar's Station. She lacks the troops to penetrate south. She wants power in the Vosk Basin, that is the best for which she can hope. Torcadino is an ally of Ar, and has never fallen. There is no southern invasion force from Cos. The story about Dietrich of Tarnburg is a fabrication. This pretended intelligence report, absurdly conceived, is intended to lead us to despair. It is a ruse to bring about the surrender of the city. Do they really think we would believe that this report just happened to fall into our grasp, at this time? Do they intend for us to take it seriously? It is not even in cipher. The implicit absurdity of this document, suggesting that Ar would stand about with almost the totality of her might while we are under attack, that we have been, in effect, abandoned, makes it clear that the relieving forces of Ar must actually be quite close, perhaps only a day or two away."

  There were sounds of agreement, perhaps rather desperate ones, behind me. "I do not know the location of the main body of the might of Ar," I said, "but I suspect it is exactly where this report states it is, and that this report is apprising Artemidorus of the situation. I do not know why it is not in cipher. Perhaps this information is not really that secret, at least to Cosians. After all, it is not easy to conceal the whereabouts of thousands of men from a foe with tarn scouts. I would also suggest to you that there is indeed a Cosian invasion force in the south, and one that makes the one here look like a squad. Your conjecture that Cos could not field such land forces assumes that these forces must consist of her own troops. That is not true, of course. You must realize that even here the majority of the men who face you are not Cosian regulars but allies and mercenaries."

  "Do you realize the cost of supporting such forces?" asked Aemilianus. "Lurius is willing, I suspect, to gamble the gold of Cos on victory, and recoup his investment a thousandfold in the future."

  "There is not so much gold in Cos and Tyros," said Aemilianus.

  "It may not all be from Cos and Tyros," I said.

  "From whence then?" asked he.

  "From cities interested in a Cosian victory," I said, "and, too, I suspect, from Ar herself."

  I felt a knife at my throat, above the rope tether there.

  Aemilianus made a small, negative gesture. The knife was pulled back.

  "You do not know the message in the letter cylinder," he said.

  "No," I said.

  Did you see the regent close the cylinder, and affix his seal upon it?" he aske
d.

  "No," I said. "It was handed to me by a subordinate, in the condition in which you received it."

  "It is a little joke on the part of the regent," said Aemilianus.

  "A joke?" I said.

  "Yes," said he," your allegiances and treachery were discovered in Ar, long before you came here."

  "I do not understand," I said.

  "The bearer of this cylinder, who calls himself Tarl, of Port Kar," read Aemilianus, "is a Cosian spy. Deal with him as you please."

  "No!" I cried. I tried to rise but I was forced down, again, on my knees. I was held there. One fellow had his foot on my tether about my neck, keeping my head low. I put back my head, as I could, to look at Aemilianus.

  I heard grim laughter about me.

  It is a trick!" I said.

  "And you are the one who has been tricked," smiled Aemilianus.

  There was laughter.

  "Did you truly think we might surrender the city?" asked Aemilianus. "So you really think not know how long and bitter has been this siege? Do you not know how lengthy and terrible has been the fighting? Do you not know the losses of Cos, as well as ours? Do you really think we do not know what fate would await us if we opened the gates?"

  I was then held even more sternly, and the tether, under the fellow's foot, was shortened further.

  "But where," asked a young fellow in the back, the first time he had spoken, "are the relieving forces of Ar?"

  "It is my hope that they are on their way here," said Aemilianus.

  "But why have they not arrived?" asked the young fellow.

  "Do not forget your age," said a man.

  "I have been on the wall as much as you," he said.

  "I do not know," said Aemilianus.

  "It is possible, is it not," asked the young fellow, "that they might arrive too late?"

  "It is too possible," said Aemilianus.

  "The safety of the city is in your hands, Captain," said the young fellow. "The security of her citizens is your responsibility. I think the in the light of the events that have taken place you should consider an alternative."

  "Who would do this?" asked Aemilianus.

  I did not understand their discourse.

  "I would," said the young man.

  "No!" cried an older fellow. "We would die to the last man before we would have recourse to such an action!"

  "They would laugh at us!" said another.

  "You were not on the river," said Aemilianus.

  "With your permission, Captain?" said the young man.

  "Go," said Aemilianus, resigned.

  "No!" cried another man, but the young fellow had turned, and was already taking his way from the room.

  "He will never make it from the city," said a fellow.

  "He will be dead by dusk," said another.

  "Listen," said a man. "The trumpets."

  "The morning assault has begun," said another.

  Aemilianus rose up, unsteadily. "Gentlemen," said he, "let us to our stations." Then he looked down, wearily, upon me. "I understand," he said, "that on the wall, you were nearly hung."

  I looked up at him, as I could, but said nothing. "Perhaps it is just as well that you were not," he said. "Hanging is too swift a death for a spy."

  I struggled, futilely.

  "Put him with the other spy," said Aemilianus.

  12 The Cell; The Spy

  The tether on my neck was removed.

  I stood before an opened iron door.

  "Remove his shackles," said an officer.

  My hands and ankles were freed. I was covered by two crossbows. Any suspicions or sudden move, I was sure, would result in the entry into my body of those two stubby, heavy iron bolts.

  I was then thrust through the door and it shut heavily behind me.

  I heard it locked.

  I stood in a cell, on huge, flat stones, strewn with straw. There was more straw piled in the corners of the cell. It was not a small cell. It was perhaps twenty feet square. It was lit by a shaft of light, descending from a window high in the wall. This window was barred. The bars appeared to be some two inches in thickness and were set about two inches apart.

  I tried the door. It was sturdy. The hinges were on the other side. It had an observation panel in it, which, latched, as it was now, could be opened only from the outside. There was also a narrow paneled opening in the bottom of the door, also locked now, through which, when it was opened, a pan, say, of water, or bread, or dampened meal, might be inserted. I looked about the cell. I checked the floor, the walls. It was a sturdy cell. It was the sort of cell in which inmates, to their dismay, soon discover that they cannot escape, that they are helpless, that they are truly prisoners.

  I then turned to face the other prisoner.

  She shrank back, naked in the straw. She was at the side of the room. She knelt there, frightened, her knees clenched closely together. When I had been entered into the room she had cried out in protest and cringed. She had moved her head and her hands for an instant in such a way as to suggest she wished to bring her hair forward, before her, to use it to partially cover her breasts and body, but then she moaned. She could not do so. Her hair, as she had recalled, almost immediately, had been cropped short. She did pull straw up, about the thighs and waist, to help hide herself. She now looked at me, wildly, kneeling, huddling in the straw, covering her body, as she could, with her hands.

  "Why have they done this?" she asked.

  "What?" I asked.

  "Put you in with me!" she said.

  "I do not know," I said.

  Then she bend down further, making herself even smaller in the straw, looking up at me.

  "Are you a gentleman?" she asked, plaintively.

  "No," I said.

  She moaned. "They must hate me so," she wept. "They have done this deliberately! It is not enough that they have removed my clothing and incarcerated me?" "You are a spy." I said.

  "So, too, then must you be," she cried, "that you have been put in with me!" "It seems they think so," I said, irritably.

  "I was caught!" she cried. "What will they do to me?"

  "Are you a free woman?" I asked.

  "Yes!" she said. "Of course!"

  "I do not think it will be pleasant then," I said.

  She moaned.

  I looked up at the high window. There was nothing in the room which made it possible to reach it, even to look out.

  "They hardly feed me enough to keep me alive!" she exclaimed.

  "You are probably fed as well as others in Ar's Station," I said. "Look," she said. "They took my hair!"

  "In that way," I said, "they have seen to it that you have done your bit for Ar's Station."

  "The city must soon fall," she said. "We must then be rescued!" "The citadel," I said, "can be held long after the walls. They would have time to deal with us."

  She put her head down, weeping bitterly.

  "When are we fed?" I asked.

  "At noon," she said, lifting her head, looking at me, angrily.

  "Do they make you perform for your food?" I asked.

  She looked at me, in fury.

  "I see that they did," I said.

  "No more," she said. "There is a woman warder now. The men were needed on the walls."

  "Full usage?" I asked.

  "No," she said, angrily, "such things as dancing, and posing, before the panel. They never entered the cell."

  "Did you dance and pose well?" I asked.

  "When I did not, I was not fed," she said, bitterly.

  "Still," I said, "you escaped easily."

  "Undoubtedly," she said, bitterly.

  "Did you enjoy dancing and posing?" I asked.

  "Are you mad?" she asked.

  "Perhaps," I said. I smiled inwardly. I had noted a tiny movement about her, and a fleeting, frightened expression, before she had answered so belligerently. I saw that she was female.

  I glanced toward the door.

  "There is a woman warde
r?" I asked.

  "Do not rouse your hopes," she said. "She does not enter the cell." "Who are you?" I asked.

  "Claudia, Lady of Ar's Station," she said.:Where were you caught?" I asked.

  "On the parapet," she said. "I did not even know I was suspected until I felt the rope on my neck."

  I sat down in the straw, facing the door. "Tell me of these things," I said. "Doubtless my story, in its way, is not much different from yours," she said.

  "Perhaps," I said.

  She spoke more freely, not under my eye.

  "I did not receive the promotion and advancement which were my due here," she said. "I wanted even missions to Ar herself, but others were chosen in my place. How wrong this was!"

  "Continue," I said.

  "I am a beautiful and brilliant person," she said. "Yet my perfections were insufficiently rewarded."

  "Perhaps you are only a pretty mediocrity," I said.

  "My talents were ignored," she said, angrily.

  I thought she might, if only latently, have excellent woman talents.

  "Then the Cosians were upon us," she said. "We were all in fear of our lives. It became clear, after weeks, that Ar was not coming to our rescue. It would be everyone for himself. The clever must save themselves. I would be clever. Sometimes at night the women go to the parapets, to lower baskets with money, for food. Some women, as you probably know, particularly those without money, stripped themselves and lowered themselves over the wall, surrendering to the first Cosian they met, selling themselves into slavery for so little as a crust of bread or a handful of gruel."

  There was still food, though it seemed not much of it in the city. For example, even she, a caught spy, was still being fed. The women who did this, I suspected, lowering themselves naked over the wall, their bodies brushing and touching the stone in their descent, had had motivations deeper than hunger. Hunger, however, might have provided a convenient and excellent rationalization for their action. The nudity of the suppliants, of course, was only to be expected. Stripping themselves, baring their breasts, and such, is natural for female suppliants, before men. the nudity, too, would make clear their intent, and make it less likely that they might, in the darkness, be slain as mere fugitives. Nudity, too, makes it difficult to conceal weapons. For example, sometimes, when slaves are taken to Ubars, and such, they are stripped and wrapped in a scarlet sheet, if they are "red silk," and in a white sheet, if they are "white silk." They are then placed in the master's chambers, often through a panel in the door, the sheet remaining behind. A girl normally makes the journey only once in a white sheet, of course. Nudity, all in all, is not uncommon, in women surrendering to men. it is also not uncommon, of course, in slaves presenting themselves before masters.