Norman, John - Gor 23 - Renegades of Gor.txt

by Renegades of Gor [lit]

  domestic tarns, like wild tarns, almost always made their own kills. They may

  still do so, of course, but now many have been trained to accept prepared, even

  preserved, meat. Ideally, they are taught to do this from the time of

  hatchlings, it being thrust into their mouths, given to them much as their

  mother bird would do in the wild. Tongs are used. With older birds, on the other

  hand, captured wild tarns, for example, the training usually takes the form of

  tying fresh meat on live animals, and then, when the tarn is accustomed to

  eating both, effecting the transition to the prepared meat. Needless to say, a

  hunting tarn is extremely dangerous, and although its favorite prey may be

  tabuk, or wild tarsk, they can attack human beings. This training innovation,

  interestingly enough, and perhaps predictably, was not primarily the result of

  an attempt to increase the safety of human beings, particularly those in rural

  areas, but was rather largely the result of attempting to achieve military

  objectives, in particular those having to do with the logistical support of

  (pg.53) the tarn cavalry. Because of it, for the first time, large tarn

  cavalries, numbering in the hundreds of men, became practical.

  “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.

  (pg.54) “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.”

  (pg.55) “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.

  “Tr
y 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.

  (pg.56) 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

  (pg.57) 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 not 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 (pg.58) 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 (pg.59)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 mat
ters.

  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 (pg.60) 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