Assassin of Gor

by Norman, John;

  “How much ransom do you think so great a woman would bring?” asked Nela.

  “I don’t know,” I admitted. “Maybe the Hinrabian brick works,” I ventured.

  Nela laughed.

  I felt her hands hard about my spine, and could sense her thought. “It would be amusing,” said she, rather bitterly, “if whoever captured her would collar her, and keep her as a slave.”

  I rolled over and looked at Nela, and smiled.

  “I forget myself, Master,” said she, dropping her head.

  Nela was a sturdy girl, a bit short. She had wrapped about her a piece of toweling. Her eyes were blue. She was a magnificent swimmer, strong and vital. Her blond hair was cut very short to protect it from the water; even so, in swimming, such girls often wrapped a long broad strap of glazed leather about their head, in a turban of sorts. Beneath the toweling Nela wore nothing; about her neck, rather than the common slave collar, she, like the other bath girls, wore a chain and plate. On her plate was the legend: I am Nela of the Capacian Baths. Pool of Blue Flowers. I cost one tarsk.

  Nela was an expensive girl, though there were pools where the girls cost as much as a silver tarn disk. The tarsk is a silver coin, worth forty copper tarn disks. All the girls in the Pool of Blue Flowers cost the same, except novices in training who would go for ten or fifteen copper tarn disks. There were dozens of pools in the vast, spreading Capacian Baths. In some of the larger pools the girls went as cheaply as one copper tarn disk. For the fee one was entitled to use the girl as he wished for as long as he wished, his use, of course, limited by the hours of the pool’s closing.

  The first time I had seen Nela, several days ago, she had been playing in the pool alone, rolling about. It took but one glance and I dove into the water, swam to her, seized her by the ankle and dragged her under, kissing her, rolling about beneath the surface. I liked the lips and feel of her and when we broke surface, she and I laughing, I asked her how much she went for. “For a tarsk,” she laughed, and turned about, looking at me, “but you will have to catch me first.”

  I knew this game of bath girls, as though they, mere slaves, would dare to truly flee from one who pursued them, and I laughed, and she, too, sensing my understanding, laughed. The girl commonly pretends to swim away but is outdistanced and captured. I knew that few men could, if a bath girl did not wish it, come close to them in the water. They spend much of the day in the water and, it is said, are more at ease in that element than the Cosian song fish.

  “Look,” I said, pointing to the far end of the curving pool, some hundred and fifty yards away, “if I do not catch you before you reach the edge you will have your freedom for the day.”

  She looked at me, puzzled, her feet and hands moving.

  “I will pay the tarsk,” I said, “and I will not use you, nor make you serve me in any way.”

  She looked over to the side of the pool where a small man in a tunic of toweling was standing about, a metal box with a slot strapped over his shoulder.

  “Is Master serious?” she asked.

  “Yes,” I said.

  “You cannot catch me if I do not wish it,” she said, warning me.

  “Then,” I said, “you will have your freedom for a day.”

  “Agreed,” she said.

  “Go!” I said.

  She looked at me and laughed, and then, on her back, began to move gracefully toward the opposite end of the pool. Once she stopped, seeing that I was not yet following. She, I noted, had not been hurrying. I knew that she could, if she wished, swim like a water lizard making a strike. Yet it was enough for her to play with me, to tease me, if I should follow her, keeping just out of my reach. She was puzzled that I was not yet thrashing after her.

  She was about half of the way to the far edge of the pool when she straightened herself in the water, and looked back at me.

  At that moment I began to swim.

  I gather, from the sound of a fellow watching us, that she began to swim again when I began to follow her. Apparently, from what I later learned, she began to swim slowly on her back until it became clear to her that I was gaining with some swiftness. Then she rolled onto her stomach and began to stroke easily toward the far edge, looking back now and then. In a matter of about ten Ihn, however, seeing me approach ever more closely, she began to move with a deliberate, swift ease. But still I gained. I swam as I never had before, knifing through the water. The thought went through me, bubbling to the roar of water passing my ears, that tomorrow I would scarcely be able to move; each breath was a cruel explosion in my lungs. At that point, looking back once more, and noting that I was still moving quickly toward her, and not willing to lose a possible rare day’s freedom, she began, with the marvelous, strong trained stroke of her legs and arms, to slice swiftly through the water. Still I gained. Now she was moving as rapidly as she could, determinedly, a fury of beauty in the water. Yet I pressed on, ever gaining, each of my muscles suddenly charged with the excitement of the pursuit of her. I now sensed her but feet from me, swimming desperately, the pool’s edge long yards away. Faster yet I swam. I knew now I would overtake her. Suddenly she, sensing this too, became like a maddened, terrified water animal. She cried out in frustration. She lost her stroke. She threw all her energies now into her panic-stricken flight; but the beauty of the rhythm, that powerful, even rhythm, was gone; her stroke was uneven; she lifted too much water; she missed a breath; she thrashed; but still she fled wildly for safety, kicking madly, trying to escape. And then my hands closed on her waist and she cried out in rage, struggling, trying to break free. I turned her about on her back and put my hand in the chain about her throat, staying behind her. She tried to put her hands back but could not remove my hand from the chain. Then, slowly, in triumph, my hand in the chain, I towed her on her back, she helpless, to the other end of the pool.

  In a secluded place, among the planted grasses and ferns, sheltered from view, I had lifted Nela from the pool and placed her on a large piece of orange toweling on the grass, near which I had left my clothes and pouch.

  “It seems you have lost your freedom for the day,” I said.

  I liked the feel of her wet body. There were tears in her eyes.

  “It will be a silver tarsk for that one,” said a thin voice behind me. I motioned that the man should get the coin from my pouch and he did so. I heard the coin drop into the metal box, and heard him leave.

  “What is your name?” I asked.

  “Nela,” said she, “if it pleases Master.”

  “It pleases me,” I said.

  I took the girl into my arms, and pressed my lips to hers, as she lifted her arms and placed them about my neck.

  After we had kissed we swam together, and then again kissed and swam. Afterwards, Nela gave me the first rubbing, with coarse oils, loosening dirt and perspiration, and scraped me with the thin, flexible bronze strigil; then she gave me the second rubbing, vigorous and stimulating, with heavy toweling; then she gave me the third rubbing, that with fine, scented oils, massaged at length into the skin. After that we lay side by side for a long time, looking up at the bluish translucent dome of the Pool of Blue Flowers. There are, as I mentioned, many pools in the Capacian Baths, and they differ in their shapes and sizes, and in their decor, and in the temperatures and scents of their waters. The temperature of the Pool of Blue Flowers was cool and pleasing. The atmosphere of the pool was further charged with the fragrance of Veminium, a kind of bluish wildflower commonly found on the lower slopes of the Thentis range; the walls, the columns, even the bottom of the pool, were decorated with representations of Veminium, and many of the plants themselves were found in the chamber. Though the pool was marble and the walkways about it, much of the area was planted with grass and ferns and various other flora were in abundance. There were many small nooks and glades, here and there, some more than forty yards from the pool, where a man might rest. I had heard the Pool of the Tropics was an excellent pool in the Capacian; and also the Pool of Ar’s Glories, a
nd the Pool of the Northern Forests; there was even, of recent date, a Pool of the Splendor of the Hinrabians; I myself, however, with one arm about Nela, who nestled against me, felt content with the Pool of Blue Flowers.

  “I like you,” she said to me.

  I kissed her, and looked again to the ceiling.

  I recalled Harold of the Tuchuks. The pools were beautiful, and yet I knew that somewhere, chained in darkness, were gangs of male slaves who cleaned them each night; and there were of course the Bath Girls of Ar, of which Nela was one, said to be the most beautiful of all Gor. Harold, as a boy, had once been a slave in the baths, those of the city of Turia, before he had escaped. He had told me that sometimes a Bath Girl, to discipline her, is thrown to the slaves in the darkness. I held Nela a bit more closely to me, and she looked at me, puzzled.

  Nela had been a slave since the age of fourteen. To my surprise she was a native of Ar. She had lived alone with her father, who had gambled heavily on the races. He had died and to satisfy his debts, no others coming forth to resolve them, the daughter, as Gorean law commonly prescribes, became state property; she was then, following the law, put up for sale at public auction; the proceeds of her sale were used, again following the mandate of the law, to liquidate as equitably as possible the unsatisfied claims of creditors. She had first been sold for eight silver tarsks to a keeper of one of the public kitchens in a cylinder, a former creditor of her father, who had in mind making a profit on her; she worked in the kitchen for a year as a pot girl, sleeping on straw and chained at night, and then, as her body more adequately developed the contours of womanhood, her master braceleted her and took her to the Capacian Baths where, after some haggling, he received a price of four gold pieces and a silver tarsk; she had begun in one of the vast cement pools as a copper-tarn-disk girl and had, four years later, become a silver-tarsk girl in the Pool of Blue Flowers.

  Now, days after I had first met Nela, I lay thinking on the thick square of striped toweling and felt her massage the final oils of the bath into my body.

  “I hope,” said Nela, kneading my flesh rather harder than was necessary, “Claudia Tentia Hinrabia is made a slave.”

  I lifted my head and got up on my elbows, looking at her.

  “Are you serious?” I asked.

  “Yes,” said Nela, bitterly, “let her be branded and collared. Let her be forced to please men.”

  “Why do you hate her so?” I asked.

  “She is free,” said Nela, “and of high birth and rich. Let such women, I say, feel the iron. Let it be they who dance to the whip.”

  “You should feel sorry for her,” I recommended.

  Nela threw back her head and laughed.

  “She is probably an innocent girl,” I said.

  “She once had the nose and ears of one of her girls cut off for having dropped a mirror,” said Nela.

  “How do you know that?” I asked.

  The girl laughed. “Everything that goes on in Ar,” she said, “is heard in the Capacian.” Then she looked at me bitterly. “I hope she is made a slave,” she said. “I hope she is sold in Port Kar.”

  I gathered that Nela must hate the Hinrabian girl much indeed.

  “Are the Hinrabians popular in Ar?” I asked.

  Nela stopped massaging my back.

  “Do not answer if you do not wish,” I said.

  “No,” she said, and I could sense her looking about. “They are not popular.”

  “What of Kazrak?” I asked.

  “He was a good Administrator,” she said. “He is gone now.”

  She began again to massage my back. The oil was fragrant. It felt warm from her hands.

  “When I was a little girl,” she said, “when I was free I once saw Marlenus of Ar.”

  “Oh?” I asked.

  “He,” she said, “was the Ubar of Ubars.” There was something of awe in her voice.

  “Perhaps,” I said, “someday Marlenus will return.”

  “Do not speak so,” she whispered. “Men have been impaled in Ar for less.”

  “I understand he is in the Voltai,” I said.

  “Minus Tentius Hinrabius,” she said, “has a dozen times sent prides of a hundred Warriors to the Voltai to seek him out and slay him, but never have they found him.”

  “Why should he wish to slay him?” I asked.

  “They fear him,” she said. “They fear he will return to Ar.”

  “Impossible,” I said.

  “In these days,” she said, “much is possible.”

  “Would you like to see him again in Ar?” I asked.

  “He was,” said the girl, her voice proud, “the Ubar of Ubars.” Her hands were powerful now, and I could feel the thrill in her. “When he was publicly refused bread, salt and fire on the height of the central cylinder, when he was exiled from Ar, not to return on pain of death, do you know what he said?”

  “No,” I said, “I do not.”

  “He said, ‘I will come again to Ar.’”

  “Surely you do not believe it,” I said.

  “I could speak to you of things I have heard,” she said, “but it is better that you not know of them.”

  “As you wish,” I said.

  I heard her voice, something of awe in it. “He said,” she repeated, “‘I will come again to Ar.’”

  “Would you like to see him once more upon the throne?” I asked.

  She laughed. “I am of Ar,” she said. “He was Marlenus. He was the Ubar of Ubars!”

  I rolled over, took Nela by the wrists, drew her to me and kissed her. I saw no reason to tell her that this very afternoon, in the arcade of the stadium, I had seen Marlenus of Ar.

  Upon leaving the baths I encountered by chance the Tarn Keeper whom I had met briefly when observing the game outside the tavern of Spindius, that fought between the blind Player and the Vintner. He was short, small, with close-cropped brown hair. He had a rather heavy, squarish face, large considering his size. I saw he wore a patch of green on his shoulder, indicating he was of the Greens.

  “I see you now wear the red of the Warrior,” said he, “rather than the black of the Assassin.”

  I said nothing.

  “I know disguises are useful,” said he, “in hunting.” He grinned at me. “I liked what you did at the game, when you gave the double tarn to the Player.”

  “He did not accept it,” I said. “To him it was black gold.”

  “And so it was,” said the Tarn Keeper, “so it was.”

  “It will buy as much as yellow gold,” said I.

  “True,” said the Tarn Keeper, “and that is what must be kept in mind.”

  I turned to go.

  “If you are intending to go to table in the neighborhood,” said he, “may I accompany you?”

  “Of course,” said I.

  “I know a good tavern,” said he, “which favors the Greens. Many of the faction eat and drink there after the races.”

  “Good,” I said. “I am hungry and would drink. Take me to this place.”

  The tavern, like the Capacian Baths, was within fair walking distance of the stadium. It was called, appropriately enough, the Green Tarn, and the proprietor was a genial fellow, bald and red-nosed, called Kliimus. The Pleasure Slaves who served wore green Pleasure Silk, and the tops of the tables and the walls were also painted green; even the curtains on the alcoves by one wall were green. About the walls, here and there, were lists and records, inked on narrow boards; there were also, here and there, hanging on the walls, some memorabilia, such as saddle rings and tarn harnesses, suitably labeled as to their origin; there were also representations of tarns and some drawings of famous riders, who had brought victory to the Greens.

  Tonight, however, the tavern was relatively subdued, for the day had not been a good one for the Greens. And, instead of racing, many were discussing the case of the daughter of the Hinrabian Administrator, speculating on her whereabouts, arguing about how the abduction, if abduction it was, could possibly hav
e taken place within earshot of dozens of Taurentian guardsmen. There had apparently been no tarns near the central cylinder during the time, and, according to report, no strangers were known to have entered the cylinder. It was a mystery suitable to start all Ar conjecturing.

  The Tarn Keeper, who was called by those in the tavern Mip, bought the food, bosk steak and yellow bread, peas and Torian olives, and two golden-brown, starchy Suls, broken open and filled with melted bosk cheese. I bought the paga, and several times we refilled our cups. Mip was a chipper fellow, and a bit dapper considering his caste and his close-cropped hair, for his brown leather was shot with green streaks, and he wore a Tarn Keeper’s cap with a greenish tassel; most Tarn Keepers, incidentally, crop their hair short, as do most Metal Workers; work in the tarncots and in training tarns is often hard, sweaty work.

  Mip, for some reason, seemed to like me, and he spoke much during the evening, as we drank together, of the factions, of the organizations of the races, of the training of tarns and riders, of the hopes of the greens and the other factions, of given riders and given birds. I suspected few knew as much of the races of Ar as Mip.

  After we had eaten and drunk together, clapping me on the shoulders, Mip invited me to the tarncot where he worked, one of the large cots of the Greens.

  I was pleased to accompany him for I had never seen a faction cot before.

  We walked through the dark streets of Ar, and though such was perhaps dangerous, none approached us, though some who passed did so with circumspection, their weapons drawn. I expect the fact that I walked as a Warrior, a sword at my side, perhaps dissuaded individuals who might otherwise have attempted to cut a purse or threaten a throat were they not rewarded for leniency. There are few on Gor who will take their lives into their hands by confronting a Gorean Warrior.

  The cot was one of six in a vast and lofty cylinder containing many of the offices and dormitories of those associated professionally with the Greens. Their records and stores, and treasures, are kept in this cylinder, though it is only one of four they maintain in the city. The tarncot in which Mip worked was the largest and, I was pleased to note, he was the senior Tarn Keeper in the place, though there were several employed there. The cot was a huge room beneath the roof of the cylinder, taking up what normally would be four floors of the cylinder. The perches were actually a gigantic, curving framework of tem-wood four stories high, and following the circular wall of the cylinder. Many of the perches were empty, but there were more than a hundred birds in the room; each was now chained to its area of the perch; but each, I knew, at least once in every two days, was exercised; sometimes, when men do not wander freely in the cot, and the portals of the cot, opening to the sky, are closed, some of the birds are permitted the freedom of the cot; water for the birds is fed from tubes into canisters mounted on triangular platforms near the perches, but there is also, in the center of the cot, in the floor, a cistern which may be used when the birds are free. Food for the tarns, which is meat, for that is their diet, is thrust on hooks and hauled by chain and windlass to the various perches; it might be of interest to note that, when any of the birds are free, meat is never placed on the hooks or on the floor below; the racing tarn is a valuable bird and the Tarn Keepers do not wish to have them destroy one another fighting over a verr thigh.