Swordsmen of Gor cog[oc-29

by John Norman

  “Do you know them?” he asked.

  “No,” I said.

  “You must have seen them about the camp,” he said.

  “Perhaps,” I said. “They are not of the cavalry.”

  “Recall them,” he said.

  “Quintus, and Fabius,” I said, “perhaps of Ar, or Venna, Telarion, possibly of Ar, Lykourgos and Tyrtaios, perhaps of the island ubarates.”

  “Those may not be their true names,” said Lord Nishida.

  I nodded. Many Goreans, particularly those limited to the First Knowledge, have “use names” to conceal their real names, for fear the real names might somehow be used against them, perhaps in spells. Too, it should be noted that the names given were not unusual on Gor. I had known others who bore those names, particularly Quintus and Fabius. Those names are common in Ar. The names might have been altered, too, of course, simply to obtain the convenience of an alias.

  “I wanted you to meet them,” he said.

  “Yes?” I said.

  “At least one is a spy,” said Lord Nishida.

  “Which?” I asked.

  “I do not know,” said Lord Nishida. “What do you think I should do?”

  “I do not know,” I said.

  “I could kill them all,” he said.

  “Some would do that,” I said.

  “Would you?”

  “I do not think so,” I said. “I would probably dismiss them, send them away, on some pretext or other.”

  “Might that not arouse their suspicion?” he asked.

  “Perhaps not, if it were subtly done,” I said, “perhaps mixing them with others, but it would doubtless prompt the spy or spies to act.”

  “Or the assassin to strike?”

  “Yes,” I said.

  “I will proceed differently, with patience,” said Lord Nishida. “A detected spy may be of value. A spy regarded as undiscovered is not a spy to be replaced. Too, it is a spy who may be used to convey misinformation, lies, deceits, false plans, and such, to an enemy.”

  “Lord Nishida is indeed subtle,” I said.

  “I am troubled by one thing,” said Lord Nishida.

  “What is that?” I asked.

  “One,” he said, “is of the dark caste.”

  “The Assassins,” I said.

  “I fear so,” smiled Lord Nishida.

  “Then,” I said, “dismiss them all, and the sooner, the better.”

  “I think not,” he said.

  “Do not sup with an ost,” I said.

  “Many do, and know it not,” said Lord Nishida. “I have the advantage of them, for I know that in one of five places before me, at my own table, tiny, curled in one of five cups, there lurks an ost.”

  “Beware you do not lift that cup,” I said.

  “One must lift the cup,” he said. “Else the ost will know its presence is suspected.”

  “I do not like it,” I said.

  “The ost listens, is attentive, and patient,” smiled Lord Nishida. “It will not strike until it is ready.”

  “It may be ready now,” I said.

  “I do not think so,” said Lord Nishida. “Remember the five. You may have to kill one, or more.”

  “I see,” I said.

  “Have you ever crossed swords with an Assassin?”

  “Once,” I said, “long ago.”

  “And you survived,” smiled Lord Nishida. “You must be skilled.”

  “They are men, like any other,” I said.

  “Not like any other,” said Lord Nishida.

  “True,” I said. “Not like any other.”

  “Finish your sake,” suggested Lord Nishida.

  I threw it down, which brought a slight tremor of surprise, and distaste, or, perhaps better, disappointment, to the fine features of the daimyo, for sake is not to be so drunk. Perhaps kal-da or paga, but not sake.

  “You are a refined, civilized individual, one of taste,” I said. “Perhaps you do not realize the risks with which you bedeck your environs.”

  “Nor you yours,” responded Lord Nishida, quietly.

  “I see,” I said.

  ” Sake is to be sipped,” said Lord Nishida.

  “I do not know why I was brought to the forests,” I said, “or who saw to my bringing, but I have formed your cavalry, for whatever purpose it might serve, and others, Torgus, Lysander, Tajima, Ichiro, might now command it. My work here, I take it, is done.”

  “You have forged a sword, and are not curious as to its purpose?” asked Lord Nishida.

  “One wonders,” I said.

  “I assure you, it has one,” said Lord Nishida.

  “Not here?”

  “No, not here.”

  “Far away?”

  “Quite far.”

  “I would be curious to see a far shore,” I said.

  “I thought so,” he said.

  I recalled the wands, and the larls. “Too,” I said, “I think few would choose to withdraw from your service.”

  “It would be an unwise choice,” said Lord Nishida.

  In the shadows I sensed that Kurii might lurk. But, too, it might be Priest-Kings.

  “I do not serve beasts,” I said.

  “Or Priest-Kings?” he asked.

  “Nor Priest-Kings,” I said.

  “We all serve beasts,” he said. “What are we, or others?”

  “Whom do you serve?” I asked.

  “My shogun,” he said.

  “And he is a beast?”

  “Surely.”

  “And you?”

  “Of course.”

  “And I?”

  “Of course.”

  The tapestries of existence are darkly woven. What hand, or paw, I wondered, jerks tight the knots of destiny.

  But might not the blade of will, no matter how foolishly, lash out at the cords, and slash them, though the fabric itself be disfigured?

  Or is the slashing, the weeping, and grief, the anger, the fear, the resentment, only another element in the design?

  No, I thought, no.

  “It is the third watch,” I said. “I shall make some rounds, and see that all is well.”

  “Splendid,” said Lord Nishida.

  “You have given me much to think about,” I said.

  “That was my intention,” said Lord Nishida.

  I rose to my feet, bowed, and turned away.

  “Tarl Cabot, tarnsman,” said Lord Nishida.

  “Yes?” I said.

  ” Sake,” he said, “is to be sipped.”

  “I shall remember,” I said.

  I then left the double tent.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  a lantern will fail to convey its signal in due course; i am invited to an interview

  Outside the tent I stopped, and lifted my head, and looked up, into the night, to the stars.

  They are very bright in the Gorean night.

  Many on Earth, I supposed, had never seen stars so.

  I took some deep breaths, that I might be steadied.

  I wanted to clear my head, of the lingering whispers of paga, and the fumes of confusion and fear.

  I touched the shoulder strap of the scabbard. I was fond of leather, steel, the cry of the tarn, the softness of slaves. Such things were comprehensible to me. I did not care for what had occurred in the tent of Lord Nishida. I did not care for the ambiguities of men, the opacities of motivation, the secret springs which governed the engines of diplomacy and policy. I did not care for the veils with which reality so frequently chose to clothe herself, nor for the thousand mirrors, with their ten thousand reflections and images, each claiming that the truth is here, the ten thousand reflections and images, mirages, betraying belief and hope.

  I began to make my way through the camp, having no destination clearly in mind.

  It was the third watch.

  I had spoken of rounds to Lord Nishida. One post or another might be passed. I wanted time to think.

  The night was warm.

&nbs
p; “How goes the night?” I asked a fellow.

  “Well, Commander,” he said.

  I was not pleased with what had occurred in the tent of Lord Nishida. I had been manipulated, easily, expertly. I supposed it was well that I had learned what I had, but truth can draw blood. Many men, I supposed, were better off without it. Lord Nishida was brilliant, and cunning. I did not dare to suppose that I understood him. Some men move others with words, as others move the pieces on the red and yellow board of kaissa. I thought Lord Nishida such a man. I did not know if he spoke truth to me, or if he spoke to me merely what he wished me to take for truth. I wondered if others understood him. He must, in his own heart, I thought, have been much alone. Perhaps he wished it that way. I did not know. Seldom are the burdens of command easily borne, particularly if one is possessed of a conscience. Many in power, I suspected, did not labor under that handicap. I suspected Lord Nishida, for better or for worse, did not. I suspected that he would pursue a project without reservation or hesitation. I thought him purposeful, and probably unscrupulous, and perhaps cruel. If one did labor so, handicapped with a conscience, I suspected it likely that others, not so slowed, not so burdened, would be before him, be first to seize the scepter, sit upon the throne, and place about their necks the medallion of the Ubar. I wondered if Lord Nishida was truly loyal to his shogun, and, if so, I wondered if his shogun was such as to deserve such loyalty, or might he, rather, in his way, regard lightly the feudal pledges which would bind a lord and vassal. Did Lord Nishida covet the shogunate? Is not power the drug of all drugs, the most dangerous of all, transcending the trivialities, the banalities, of chemistry, to which even the most professedly humble and self-effacing might be irremediably addicted? But perhaps he was loyal. There are such men, men to whom the treasure of their word, once given, however foolishly, commands the single irrepudiable allegiance. What of his own status? Was it secure? Perhaps there were others who aspired to the pavilion of the daimyo. Did not Lord Nishida himself, as daimyos and shoguns, as Ubars, and tyrants, and kings and princes, sit uneasily beneath the sword of Damocles? Men were men, I thought, whether of Ar, or Cos, or Schendi, or of the Pani.

  I touched the shoulder strap of the scabbard, again, for reassurance. It was tangible. So many realities were not.

  Animals are innocent, I thought. They kill, and feed. Men smile, and soothe, and praise, and then kill, and feed.

  Is it honor and the codes, I wondered, which separate us from animals, or, rather, is it they which bring us closer to the innocence of the animals.

  “How goes the night?” I asked.

  “Well, Commander,” I was assured.

  There were apparently spies in the camp, and perhaps an assassin. If Lord Nishida was correct at least one of the five men I had met in his tent was a spy, and one was an assassin. If one were an assassin then Lord Nishida was, indeed, so to speak, living with an ost. To be sure, if the assassin were also a spy, or the spy, to be sure a role unusual for one of that caste, I supposed that Lord Nishida was in no immediate danger, for the spy would wish to gather information, and would be unlikely to make his strike, until his reports were complete, or no longer required.

  Sometimes free women, collared and branded as slaves, were recruited for purposes of espionage. Is not the beautiful woman, curled at one’s feet, avid to learn the secrets of a house, petulant and pouting if denied, ideally suited to gather the flowers of intelligence? Is it not a natural, and simple, and innocent thing to purchase one of their smiles, at so small a cost as an expression, an unimportant, dropped word, which must, in any case, be meaningless to them? Some did not realize that as soon as they were branded and collared they were truly slaves, and others, doubtless, expected to be freed. They would not be freed, of course, none of them, for their slavery was intended by their employers from the beginning. Is it not a fit recompense for their treachery? Let them stay then in their collars, and, bound at a punishment ring, absorb the lessons of the whip, informing them as to the reality of their condition and the nature of their future. Sometimes, too, amusingly, one of these women, intended for a given house, finds that house outbid, and finds herself wagoned away to another house, perhaps out of the city. Her lamentations and protests, too, soon cease beneath the whip. She learns, too, she is then a true slave, and discovers she is perhaps a thousand pasangs from the house of her intended destination. To her horror, she soon realizes, too, that her recruiters will not attempt to reclaim her, for that might draw attention to themselves and their intentions. She then learns the collar is truly on her, that collar so closely encircling her lovely neck, and so securely, so nicely, locked. She, too, is now a slave. And another woman may easily be obtained to replace her, one with whose placement the employers will hope to have better success. A true slave will never betray her master, for she understands the terrible gravity of such a thing, and her absolute vulnerability. Too, she is now at his feet, and is his slave, and knows herself his slave, and hopes only to please him. To be sure, she might be seized and tortured, and would then speak all she knows. One does not blame her for that, nor any human being, if the torture is exquisitely done. So slaves are kept in ignorance. They cannot reveal what they do not know. Too, it is theirs to serve and please, not to be apprised of the designs and doings of men. Curiosity, it is said, is not becoming in a kajira. The collar is often a woman’s greatest safeguard. Slaves are commonly spared, even in the sacking of a city. But so, too, of course, are verr, tarsks, kaiila, and such.

  In the distance the feast was still in progress. I heard strains of a song, an anthem of Cos. Interesting, I thought, how mercenaries, outlaws, renegades, even those who have betrayed and repudiated their Home Stones, remember such things.

  I was passed by some fellows returning to their quarters, some leading leashed slaves, their hands tied behind their backs. Others passed, too, with slaves in custody, but differently, the slaves bent over, in leading position, their heads at the hips of free men, held there by the hair, these slaves’ hands fastened, too, behind their backs.

  I did not doubt but what these fellows would derive much pleasure from the slaves.

  Obviously one of the principal utilities of the female slave is the enormous pleasure which one will see to it that he obtains from her.

  How marvelous is the property female!

  I passed a post.

  “How goes the night?” I inquired.

  “Well, commander,” I was told.

  At least one of the five was a spy, it seemed, and, perhaps, too, of the dark caste.

  I wondered from what source Lord Nishida derived his information. He, too, doubtless had spies. I wondered if he thought me a spy. I wondered if one or more of the five were a spy, or one an assassin, truly, or if I had been told that merely to produce some effect in me. If so, what effect? How would he know that one or more of the five was a spy, or that, amongst the five, there might be an assassin? Might this be conjecture on his part? Might it not even be the result of some aberration, or paranoia? But I did not think Lord Nishida insane. He seemed one of the most coldly sane individuals I had ever met. In a way he reminded me of Pa-Kur, once master of the Assassins, save that Pa-Kur was not such as to be distracted by flowers, by poetry, the servings of tea, by sake, by the delights of delicate women under contract. Pa-Kur had sought power, single-mindedly, at the blade’s edge. For this he had forsworn vanities, or was it, rather, he would sacrifice all for what might prove to be the most evanescent, elusive, and alluring of all vanities, the vanity of vanities, power?

  I encountered another sentry.

  The night it seemed, was going well.

  I thought of the assassins of the medieval Middle East. The caste of assassins was quite different. They were not dupes, fools, madmen, too stupid to understand how they had been manipulated by others, young men drunk with the wine of death, who think they will somehow thrive in the cities of dust. Against such mindless puppets, such naive fools, such lunatics, manipulated by those who send them for
th, sitting safe in their mountain fastness, safe in their lair of prevarication and deceit, it is difficult to defend oneself. But the Gorean Assassin, he of the Black Caste, is not a naive, twisted, deluded, managed beast serving the purposes of others, but a professional killer. He wishes to kill and vanish, to live, to kill again. Otherwise he is no more than a clumsy oaf, a failure, having accomplished no more than might have a desperate, simple, misguided fool. If he himself dies, he has botched his work, he has failed, he has shamed his caste.

  “Hold!” said a voice, at the edge of the camp, where the track begins, which leads to the plaza of training.

  I stopped, and held my hands away from my body, and blinked a little against the light of the lifted, now-unshuttered dark lantern. There were three there. There might be others, in the shadows, with bows.

  “How goes the night?” I asked.

  “Commander,” said a voice.

  “Well,” said another, “it goes well.”

  I lowered my arms.

  “I would proceed no further, Commander,” said one, “until light.”

  “My thanks,” I said. “I shall free the blade.”

  “Two might accompany you,” said one of them, “one with a lantern.”

  I slipped the blade free from the sheath. The shoulder belt, if over one’s shoulder, may be instantly discarded. This may prove an important wisdom in a perilous situation. A scabbard, hooked to a buckled waist belt, or slung across the body, might be seized in combat, discommoding its wearer, perhaps pulling him off balance, or into the blade of a waiting knife. But the belt on the shoulder is easily shed. If one is in a territory thought safe, of course, the scabbard belt is not unoften slung across the body, looped from the right shoulder to the left hip, if the swordsman is right-handed, and, naturally enough, looped from the left shoulder to the right hip, if the swordsman is left-handed. Both modalities facilitate the swift, across-the-body draw. This arrangement provides a convenient, secure carry.

  “Remain at your post,” I said.

  “Enemies, Commander,” said one, “may linger.”

  I thought this possible, but unlikely.

  Few, I thought, would care to linger in our precincts, risking discovery by Ashigaru.