Swordsmen of Gor cog[oc-29

by John Norman

  Commonly the price of a death is another death, or more.

  The guard might, of course, have been acting under the command of Lord Nishida, or another officer.

  Somewhere he might be waiting to resume his rounds.

  But I did not think Lord Nishida was involved in this. He could have spoken to me in his tent. There must be another, or others.

  I took the tarn then south, abruptly, and tried to count the Ihn, compounding them into Ehn. Soon, much at my own level, some four hundred yards above the trees, I saw what I had anticipated, the brief unshuttering of a lantern. The color, of course, was green. If it were noted, it might even be mistaken for that of a guard. I supposed there would also be a possible display of red. Our signals, particularly such simple ones, might well be understood by means of espionage, but, on the other hand, the colors were in general accord with the color codes familiar in many cities. For example, red tended to be associated with blood, with warriors, with danger, and green with physicians, health, safety, and such.

  In some situations, guards might be ranged for several pasangs beyond a camp, a fortress or city, at serial intervals. In this fashion signals could be relayed from post to post, rather in the nature of beacons on the Vosk. By means of such beacons, fire by night, smoke by day, an alarm, or signal, or message, could be conveyed a thousand pasangs in a matter of Ehn. This arrangement, however, is commonly practical only where danger is perceived to threaten from a given direction, or a small number of directions. When the guards are not stationary but aflight in concentric circles, some with a much greater radius than others, the timing and synchronization of signals, even with chronometers, is likely to be sporadic. In such a situation it is very difficult to guard against intrusions, particularly by single intruders. Accordingly, about Tarncamp, we commonly posted a single sentry for the sky, with his circular pattern, but several for the ground.

  The lantern flashed green again, and then again went dark.

  I wiped some rain from my eyes.

  There was a single tarn, a single tarnsman. I loosened the buckler at the saddle. In moments I had drawn up beside him and, in moments, we flew parallel to one another, some yards apart, as though describing the circumference of a great circle. I kept him to my left, where I might interpose the buckler against a flighted missile, but, it seemed, he was unarmed.

  “I am prepared to buy her,” he called.

  I did not understand this eccentric modality of address.

  “A guard is missing,” I said. “Where is he?”

  “I do not know,” said the man.

  “Then I do not parley,” I said, and made to draw away.

  “He is safe,” called the man, angrily, as though this was of no moment, given weightier concerns.

  “Return him, unharmed,” I said.

  “I did not arrange this to discuss the welfare of a minion,” said the man, in fury.

  “Then,” I said, “permit me to wish you well.”

  “Hold!” he cried. “He is below, somewhere in the forest. A physician’s pellet was concealed in the tarn’s meat, before flight, the coating dissolving in some twenty Ehn. The bird is downed, sluggish, drugged. Both mount and rider, I assure you, are unharmed. Both, before morning, will return to your camp.”

  “Guards are to be soon aflight, searching,” I said.

  “Then we have little time,” he said.

  I supposed the downed rider would have the signal lantern, and might make his presence known to searchers. Too, if the fellow aflight with me spoke the truth, they might both, mount and rider, before morning, return to the cots.

  “You are, of course,” said he, “Bosk, of Port Kar, or Tarl Cabot, once of Ko-ro-ba?”

  “One supposes so,” I said. “Was it not he who was invited to this interview?” I had, too, long ago, been known as Tarl of Bristol. Indeed, I had learned that songs were sung of him, of him and of a siege, long ago, of Ar. Many, today, wise and sophisticated, supposed that personage merely a creature of myth and legend. In a sense, I supposed they were right. He seemed now, to me, more an image than a man. I, at least, was no hero, no creature of fame. How often I had been weak, frail, and troubled. How often I had been confused, and frightened. How often I had been ignoble, drunken, cruel, petty, and unworthy. How often had I fallen short of my codes! How striking are the enlargements of time! And one supposes, as well, that there must be a thousand heroes, ten thousand heroes, better men, nobler men, who have no songs. But they are there in history, a part of her, and without them she would be different, and poorer. Perhaps the singers might compose a new song, a song for those who have no songs.

  “I speak with Tarl Cabot,” he said.

  “You speak with Tarl Cabot,” I said. “I gather you are a high personage.”

  “Once high,” he said, “and one who is again to ascend.”

  “Who spoke to me in the forest?” I asked.

  “Do not concern yourself,” he said.

  “Was it he who drugged the tarn?” I inquired.

  “Surely,” he said, “and then waited for you, in the darkness.”

  “How would one know I would follow the path to the training area?” I asked.

  “Had you not,” he said, “another means would have brought you to the cots, a dropped word, a message, anything.”

  “The pellet would act,” I said, “within the period of the guard’s rounds, and ground the mount for an Ahn or more.”

  “At least three Ahn,” he said.

  “Which would give your man more than ample time to encounter me,” I said.

  “It was somewhat narrower than that,” he said, “for you must be aflight between the guard’s failure to complete a round and the dispatch of a party of inquiry.”

  “When the sky would be clear,” I said.

  “Yes,” he said.

  “It seems you have made two errors,” I said.

  “How is that?” he asked.

  “First,” I said, “there would be few who would have had access to the tarn during the evening.”

  “True,” he said.

  “Then your man,” I said, “will be one of few.”

  “Certainly,” he said. “What was the second error?”

  “He spoke to me,” I said.

  “So?” he asked.

  “I will recognize his voice,” I said.

  “No,” he said. “He is dead.”

  “You are thorough,” I said.

  “One must be,” he said.

  “Of course,” I said.

  “Let us parley,” he suggested.

  “Speak,” I said.

  “How much do you want for her?” he asked.

  “She is not for sale,” I said. Had not Cecily and I been fitted to one another, selected for one another, matched to one another, by the shrewd wisdom or insidious machinations of calculating Priest-Kings, to serve their purposes, not ours, to be mutually irresistible? She had been selected to bring about my downfall, to so tempt me that my honor might be not only jeopardized but irremediably lost. As a free woman she had been placed with me in a containment capsule on the Prison Moon, in such a proximity and under such circumstances that no man might indefinitely resist the toils of nature in which men and women, helpless captives, had been enmeshed even before small hominids had grown wicked enough and bold enough to challenge larger beasts for defensible lairs. As a free woman she could not be touched, given the codes, but it was as though steaming, juicy, roasted meat had been put before a starving larl, one forbidden to so much as touch his tongue to its heat, to its temptation. But Kurii had intervened. Later, appropriately collared, nicely become slave, a fate perfect for her, and one richly deserved, she became mine. No longer did scruples and codes, of whatever world, divide us. She was then slave, mine, as much as a cup, a belt, a sandal. I wondered sometimes if the Priest-Kings, who think in terms of generations, and even millennia, had selected us for one another, or had bred us for one another. Certainly it sometimes seemed to me that I
had been bred to stand over her, as master, and she to kneel before me, as slave. To be sure, it made little difference. She was on her knees, I stood. I wondered if the Priest-Kings had miscalculated. She had been designed to be torment and temptation to me, and to bring about the loss of my honor, my destruction as a man and warrior. To be sure, she was still torment and temptation to me, as any slave girl to a master, but now I owned her, and, as I wished, she was at my feet, and bidding.

  Is it not pleasant to have a woman so?

  “Every woman is for sale,” he said, angrily.

  “She is not,” I said.

  “I will offer you five thousand tarns of gold,” he said, “of double weight.”

  “You are mad,” I said. Such wealth, if any man might possess it, might purchase a fleet, a city. Cecily, adjudging her in the light of markets, and seasons, with which I was familiar, if put on the block, despite her intelligence, beauty, and passion, would not be likely to bring more than two silver tarsks. She was exquisite goods, but the markets were filled with such. Earth males, sometimes brought to Gor, tended to be startled and amazed at the abundance and beauty of female slaves on Gor. This plenitude of attractive, available merchandise is not, of course, unusual for a slave-holding culture, and the collar, too, is not easily come by. On the whole, it is only the loveliest who ascend the block. Even women who sell as pot girls and kettle-and-mat girls are often well worth looking at twice, and bidding on. Too, of course, the female slaves are trained, and taught their collars, and, most often, have had their slave fires ignited. This puts them much at a master’s mercy. Accordingly, their abundance and affordability, and nature, comes often as a welcome surprise to the new male immigrant, so to speak, on Gor. Sometimes he discovers a girl he knew on Earth, one perhaps hitherto far from accessible to him, who is now a Gorean slave girl, whom he then buys for his own. Indeed, sometimes, as I understand it, a young recruit for slavers, and such, may suggest that one or more girls he knew on Earth be brought to Gor, for his slave ring.

  “Then six thousand!” he cried, in fury.

  “Surely you are mad,” I said.

  “How mad?” said he. “Consider the danger to yourself, the difficulty of the business. It is unlikely you could manage it yourself. Surely you should be satisfied with six thousand tarns.”

  “Speak further,” I said.

  “She is a liability to you,” he said. “Worth nothing, unexchanged. Dangerous to keep. Others will seek her out, and kill for her, for the gold.”

  “I do not understand,” I said.

  “I am no fool!” he cried.

  I watched his hands, assuring myself he kept them on the reins. The shuttered lantern he had slung at his saddle, on the right. I gathered that he was right-handed. Most Goreans are. As nearly as I could determine he was unarmed. In this way I was flattered. Few Goreans would place themselves in proximity to a stranger, if they were unarmed. That he did so suggested forcibly to me that he was relying on a warrior’s honor, for a warrior will seldom attack an unarmed adversary. It is disapproved of in the codes. In this way he showed respect for my caste, and, simultaneously, if I observed the codes, as he apparently expected would be the case, he assured his own security.

  “If this interview is to be prolonged,” I said, “I advise you to speak quickly, and clearly. Tarnsmen may be aflight even now.”

  “Do you think I do not know why you are here, concealed in the northern forests?” he asked.

  The rain, which had been light, stopped. The light of the yellow moon, high to my right, broke through some clouds. I could see the sheen on the wings of the tarn, the streaking on its beak.

  Tarns, as other birds, do not much care to flight in the rain. Whereas the feathering tends to shed water, it is only a matter of time before the penetrant fluid soaks through the layerings and impedes the flight. For maximum efficiency the feathers must be dry and the sky clear and dry. In the wingbeat in the rain, after a sudden clearing, the rain water is flashed into the sky, sometimes taking the light in an instant’s rainbow, vanishing almost instantly to be replaced with another, and another. More than one battle was lost when an infantry took advantage of heavy rainfall to attack a foe, a foe temporarily deprived of the support of its tarn cavalry.

  “Tell me,” I said.

  “How did you manage it?” he asked. “Many are curious. The darkness in the midst of day. We held her, to make use of her, to use her as a counter, if necessary, in bargaining for our lives, our tarns ready, the crowds crying out below, the rebels climbing upward, on the height of the Central Cylinder.”

  “The Central Cylinder!” I said.

  “Certainly,” he said, angrily.

  “Then she was gone, her ropes and all, from our very side, and the cloud swept away, and there was then a light, moving away, a blinding light, like a second Tor-tu-Gor, a light on which we could not gaze. No longer had we anything with which to bargain. We took flight. Many died. The tarns of the avengers were disconcerted and confused by the light. Some of us, thus, in the confusion, made it over the walls, northward.”

  “I know you!” I cried. “From the Plaza of Tarns, from Ar! From the occupation!”

  “You cannot,” he said. “I am a humble tarnsman, Anbar, of Ar.”

  “You are Seremides,” I said, “master of the Taurentians, the palace guard, conspirator, high traitor, with Talena, and others, to the Home Stone of Ar.”

  “I am pursued,” he said. “I would again stand high in Ar, or elsewhere. There is an amnesty for any who bring forth for punishment the false Ubara, Talena, once daughter of Marlenus of Ar, now again Ubar.”

  “The usurpation then is done,” I said. “I have heard this, from others.”

  “There is a considerable reward for the return of Talena to Ar,” he said.

  “Ten thousand tarns of gold, of double weight,” I said. “That is considerably more than six thousand.”

  “You cannot bring her to Ar,” he said. “Hundreds would intercept you, and kill you, and take her from you, for the gold.”

  “But you would not?” I said.

  “No,” he said, “my oath upon it!”

  “The oath,” I said, “of one who betrayed his Home Stone.”

  “I am willing to give you six thousand tarns of gold,” he said, “in good faith, and I believe I can bring her, with a hundred men, to some point of negotiation. You cannot.”

  “There is a cavalry here,” I said.

  “It is not yours,” he said.

  “I do not have the false Ubara,” I said.

  “You must!” he cried.

  “I do not,” I said.

  “You speak falsely!” he cried.

  “Do you truly think I can create darkness in the midst of day, that I can seize a woman and fly off with her, in a blazing light?”

  This sort of thing, of course, spoke to me of no ordinary matters, even of deception and smoke, such as might have been contrived by mountebanks skilled in illusions. It spoke to me rather of Priest-Kings, or Kurii. The smoke would conceal the abduction, simply enough, and the blazing light would be a shielding, concealing, bewildering, dazzling illumination emitted from a departing vessel. Neither Priest-Kings nor Kurii cared much to advertise their devices. Large metal objects provoke curiosity and inquiry. Mystery and terror do not. They tend to close off curiosity and inquiry. Such concealments and stratagems have familiar social uses.

  “You are in league with those who can,” he said. “I have the Second Knowledge. It is not unknown to me that not all ships cleave seas, the fluid roads, but that some, like tarns, sail over mountains, are fleet amongst the clouds, spread their sails not upon the liquid fields, but in the sky, that they dare to venture upon the wind roads themselves.”

  “I know nothing of the abduction,” I said.

  “You must,” he said. “She is your slave.”

  I was silent.

  “The matter became public knowledge shortly after the rising of the people, the return of Marlenus,”
he said. “Two magistrates furnished the details, Tolnar, of the second Octavii, and Venlisius, by adoption, a scion of the Toratti. The former Ubara had been embonded in accord with the couching law of Marlenus of Ar, any free woman who couches with, or prepares to couch with, a male slave, becomes herself a slave, and the property of the male slave’s master. She was preparing to couch with Milo, a slave, and actor, when apprehended, and, it seems, you were at that time, by some stratagem or subterfuge, the master of the slave, Milo, and so became the master of the former free woman, Talena of Ar. The whole thing was very cleverly done, it seems. Considering the nature of the case, papers were carefully prepared, and measurements and prints taken, that there be no mistake about the legality of the proceeding, nor any possible problem later in the exact identification of the slave. Interestingly you did not hurry her surreptitiously from the city, as one might have supposed you would have done, but left her in the Metellan district, where she had been embonded, to be discovered, that she might then, though now a slave, continue her tenure upon the throne of Ar, as her fellow conspirators would have it, as the puppet of the forces of Cos and Tyros, under the governance of Myron, the polemarkos of Temos. We did not discover that she had been embonded until the testimonies of Tolnar and Venlisius had become public. When it became clear that Marlenus had indeed returned, he recognized by some meaningless female slave in the city, and that the rising would be successful, we took our way to the height of the Central Cylinder, from which point we hoped to either escape or negotiate our way to freedom, turning the former Ubara over to authorities, alive, for the tortures intended for her. Given the situation and what we had discovered of her, we had removed from her the raiment of the Ubara, put her in the rag of a slave, roped her, and had her at our feet, on her knees, head down, as befits a slave.”

  “And then you lost her,” I said.

  “Yes,” he said.

  “Interesting,” I said.

  “Where is she?” inquired Seremides.

  “I do not know,” I said.

  The rain then began again.

  “In Ar,” said Seremides, “you would be slain.”