by John Norman
The men who had come to the tavern were roistering but order, to some extent, had been restored. Two of the ship's lanterns had been broken. There was glass, and spilled paga about, and two broken tables. But teh musicians were again playing and again, in the square of sand, the girl performed, through not now the Whip Dance. Nude slave girls, wrists chained, hurried about. The Proprietor, sweating, aproned, was tipping yet another great bottle of paga in its sling, filling cups, that they might be borne to the drinkers. There was an occasional scream from the alcoves, bringing laughter from the tables. I heard the flash of a whip somewhere, and the cries of a girl.
I wondered if, now that the canals were barred, slaves escaped from Port Kar. The nearest solid land was about one hundred pasangs to the north, but it was open land, and, there, on the edges of the delta, there were log outposts of Port Kar, where slave hunters and trained sleen, together, patrolled the marshes' edges.
The vicious, siz-legged sleen, large-eyed, sinuous, mammalian but resermbling a furred, serpentine lizard, was a reliable, indefatigable hunter. He could follow a scent days old with ease, and then, perhaps hundreds of pasangs, and days, later, be unleashed for the sport of the hunters, to tear his victim to pieces. I expected there was not likely to be escape for slaves to the north. That left the delta, with its interminable marshes, and the thirst, and the tharlarion.
Hunting sleen are trained to scent out and destroy escaped slaves.
Their senses are unusually keen.
Tuchuks, in the sounth, as I recalled, had also used sleen to hunt slaves, and, of course, to protect their herds.
I was becoming drunk, my thoughts less connected.
The sea, I thought, the sea.
Could not Port Kar be attacked from the sea?
The music of the musicians began to beat in my blood, reeling there. I looked at the girls serving paga.
"More paga!" I cried, and anoher wench ran lightly to serve me.
But only Cos and Tyros had fleets to match those of Port Kar.
There were the northern islands, of course, and they were numerous, but small, extending in an archipelago like a scimitar northeastward from Cos, which lay some four hundred pasangs west of Port Kar. But these islands were not united, and, indeed, the government of them was usualy no more than a village council. They usually possessed no vessels more noteworthy than clinker-built skiffs and coasters.
The girl in teh sand, the dancing girl, was now performing the Belt Dance. I had seen it done once before, in Ar, in the house of Cernus, a slaver.
Only Cos and Tyros had fleets to match those of Port Kar. And they, almost of tradition, did not care to engage their fleets with hers. Doubtless all sides, including Port Kar, regarded the risks as too great; doubtless all sides, including Port Kar, were content with the stable, often profitable, situation of constant but small-scale warfare, interspersed with some trading and smuggling, which had for so long characterized their relations. Raids of one upon the other, involving a few dozen ships, were not infrequent, whether on the shipping of Port Kar, or beaching on Cos or Tyros, but major actions, those which might involve the hundreds of galleys possessed by these redoubtable maritime powers, the two island Ubarates and Port Kar, had taken place in the more than a centrury.
No, I said to myself, Port Kar is safe from the sea.
And then I laughed, for I was considering how Port Kar might fall, and yet she was my own, my own city.
"More paga!" I cried.
Tarnsmen, aflight, might annoy her with arrows or fire, but it did not seem they could seriously harm her, not unless they come in thousands upon thousands, and not even Ar, Glorious Ar, possessed tarn cavalries so great. And how, even then, could Port Kar fall, for she was a mass of holdings, each individually defensible, room to room, each separated from the others by the canals which, in their hundreds, crossed and divided the city?
No, I said to myself, Port Kar could be held a hundred years.
And even should she, somehow, fall, her men need only take ship, and then, when it pleased them, return, ordering slaves again to build in the delta a city called Port Kar.
On Gor, I told myself, and perhaps on all worlds, there will always be a Port Kar.
I found the girl on the sand seductive, and beautiful. The girls of Port Kar, I told myself are the best on Gor.
Tarnsmen, I thought, tarnsmen.
Off to my right a table was overturned and two men of the crew of Surbus were rolling about, brawling. Ohers were calling for Whip Knives to be brought. I remembered, with fondness, my own tarn, the sable monster, Ubar of the Skies. I extended my hand and the goblet was again refilled.
And I remembered, too, with bitterness, the girl, Elizabeth Cardwell, Vella of Gor, who had so helped me in my work in Ar on behalf of the Priest-kings. While returning her to the Sardar I had thought long on the matter of her safety. I surely could not permit her, though I then loved her, as I could not now, being unworthy to love, to remain longer in the dangers of Gor. Already she who doubtless be known to the Others, not Priest-Kings, who would challenge Priest-Kings for this world, and Earth. Her life would surely be in jeopardy. She had undertaken great risks with me, which I, foolishly, had permitted. When at last I had brought her safely back to the Sardar I had thus told her I would arrange with Misk, the Priest-King, that she be returned to Earth.
"No!" she had cried.
"I have made my decision," I told her. "You will be, for your own good, for your own safety and well-being, returned to the planet Earth, where you will no longer have to fear the perils of this world."
"But this is my world!" she had cried. "It is mine as much as yours! I love it and you cannot send me from it!"
"You will be returned to the planet Earth," I had informed her.
"But I love you," she said.
"I am sorry," I said, "It is not easy for me to do what I must do." There had been tears in my eyes. "You must forget me," I said. "And you must forget this world."
"You do not want me!" she cried.
"That is not true," I said, "I love you."
"You have no right," said she, "to take me from this world. It is mine, as much as yours!"
It would be hard, certainly, for her to leave this world, beautiful, bright and green, but perilous, for the cities of Earth, to breathe again its air, to live in its cubicles, to move jostled among her uncaring crowds, ot lose herself again in its mercantile grayness, its insensibilities and tediums, but it was better for her to do so. There she could be anonymous, and safe, perhaps contract a desirable marriage, and live well in a large house, perhaps with servants, and conveniences, and devices.
"You will take this world from me!" she cried.
"I have made my decision," I told her.
"You have no right," said she, "to make such a decision for me."
She looked up at me.
"It is done," I said. "Tomorrow you will be returned to Earth. Your work here is done."
I attempted to kiss her, but she had turned and, not crying, left me. My thoughts turned again to the great saddlebird, the War Tarn, Ubar of the Skies.
He had slain men who had attempted to climb to his saddle.
Yet, that night, he had permitted Elizabeth Cardwell, only a girl to saddle him, to fly away from Sardar.
He, alone, had returned four days later.
In fury I had driven the bird away.
I who had sought to protect her, had lost her.
And Talena, too, who has once been my Free Companion, years ago, I had lost. I had loved two women, and I had lost them both.
I wept at the table, foolishly.
I drank more paga, and my senses reeled.
Port Kar seemed sovereign on Thassa.
Her seamen were surely the match for any who might sail against them. They were perhaps the finest on all Gor.
It angered me, suddenly, drunkenly, that those of Port Kar, wicked as they were, should possess so superbly the skills of seamanship.
But t
hen I laughed, for I should be proud. For was I not myself of Port Kar? Could we not do what we wished, taking what we wanted, as we had rence girls that pleased us, simply binding them and making them our slaves?
I laughed, for I had been considering, aforetime, how Port Kar might fall, and yet she was my own, my own city!
The two drunken seamen were now cutting away, wildly, at one another, with whip knives. They fought in the square of sand among the tables. The girl, who had danced there, she who had worn the delicate vest and belt of chains and jewels, with shimering metal droplets attached, with the musicians, had withdrawn to one side. Men were calling oods in betting.
The whip knife is a delicate weapon, and can be used with elegance, with finesse; it is, as far as I know, unique to Port Kar.
In the shouts, under the ship's lanterns, I saw the flesh leap from the cheek of one of the seamen. The girl, the dancer, eyes blazing with delight, fists clenched, was screaming encouragement to one of the contestants.
But these men were drunk and stumbling, and their brutal striking about, it seemed, was offensive to many at the tables, who disdained so crude an employment of a weapon of such subtlety.
Then one of the men was down, vomiting in his blood, on his hands and knees. "Kill him!" screamed the girl. "Kill him!"
But teh other fellow, drunk and bleeding, to great laughter among the tables, stumbled backwards, turned, and fell unconscious.
"Kill him!" screamed the girl, in her vest and belt of chains and jewels, to the unconscious man. "Kill him!"
But the other man, bleeding, shaking his head, had now crawled from the patch of sand and now, some yards off, had collaspsed among the tables, quite as unconscious as the first.
"Kill him!" shrieked the girl to the first man. "Kill him!"
Then she screamed with pain, throwing back her head, as the lash of the five-strap Gorean slave whip cut into her back.
"Dance, Slave!" commanded the proprietor, her Master.
She, terrified, fled to the sand, with a jangling of her chains, and jewels and metal droplets, and stood tehre, tears in her eyes, knees flexed, arms lifted over her head.
"Play!" cried the proprietor to the musicians. He cracked the whip once again. They began to play, and the girl, once more, danced.
I looked upon her, and looked, as well, from face to face in that crowded, noisy, poorly lit room, filled with men laughing and drinking. There was not a face there that I saw taht did not seem to me the face of an animal. And I, whoever or whatever I might be, sat with them, at the same tables. I joined in their laughter. "More paga!" I cried.
And then I wept, for I had loved two women, and had lost them both. And, as I watched, on that square of sand between the tables in a paga tavern in Port Kar, under the ship's lanterns, the movements of the body of a slave girl, the lights reflected in her chains, the rubies, the shimmering golden droplets, I grew slowly furious.
I vowed that I would never again lose a woman.
Woman, I told myself, as many said, was natural slave.
Then she was before my very table. "Master," she whispered.
Our eyes met.
She wore a collar. I was free. HEr gramet was an ornament. At my side I wore a sword of steel.
In the instant that our glances had met I had seen that she, whom I took as woman, would, if she had had the power, make men slaves, but in that same instant she had seen, in my seyes, that it was men who were the stronger, who held the power, and that it would be she, if any, who would be the slave. "Begone," I said, releasing her from my will.
She whirled away, angrily, frightened, moving to another table.
I watched her. "That," I said to myself, "is woman."
I watched her moving, noted the glistening of the ornament she wore, remarked its sound.
I observed her, vicious, seductive, sinuous, desirable, excruciatingly desirable, owned.
She was tormenting, the collared she of her and beautiful, but I laughed, for these things were not truly hers, but his, her master's, who had but shortly before put the whip to her back, for she was but a wench in bondage, one owned by a man, in all things his.
I laughed.
The men of Port Kar, I said, know well how to treat women.
The men of Port Kar, I said to myself, know well how to keep women. As slaves, and slaves alone!
Worthless are they for aught else!
I had loved two women, and I had lost them both.
I vowed I would never lose another.
I rose drunkenly to my feet and kicked the table away.
I do not recall as clearly as I might what occured during the night, but certain things have remained with me.
I do recall that I was incredibly drunk, and furiour, and miserable, and filled with hate.
"I am of Port Kar!" I cried.
I threw a sliver tarsk, taken from what we had obtained from the slavers in the marsh, to the proprietor of the paga tavern, and took in return one of the huge bottles of paga, and took in return one of the huge bottles out of the tavern, making my way along the narrow walkway lining the canal, toward the quarters taken by my men, Thurnock and Clitus, with our slaves.
I had pounded on the beamed door of our quarters. "Paga!" I had cried. "I bring paga!"
Thurnock took down the beams from the door, and swung it open.
"Paga!" he shouted, pleased, seeing the great bottle.
Midice, startled, looked up from where she knelt, polishing the hoops of brass upon my shield. About her throat were the five coils of binding fiber, knotted there in token of her slaver. I had given her a brief tunic of silk, briefer even than had been the rence tunic she had worn when she had taunted me at the pole, and when she had danced before me, which had been taken from her by the slaver after she had been netted on the island.
"Good, my Captain," said Clitus, from one side, where he sat working on a net, reinforcing its knots one by one. He grinned at the sight of the bottle. "I could use some paga," said he. He had purchased the net in the morning, with a trident, the traditional weapons of the fisherman of the western shore and the western islands. Kneeling quite near him, holding cord for him, fiber on her throat serving as collar, knelt short, dark-haired Ula. She, too, wore a slight bit of silk.
Thura, the large, blond girl, gray eyed, knelt near a pile of wood shavings. Thurnock, though in Port Kar, had found a piece of Ka-la-na stock, and had been carving a great bow, the long bow. I knew he had also found some bits of bosk horn, and some leather, and some hemp and silk. In two or three days, I expected, he, too, would have a bow. Piles he had already commissioned from a smith; and Thura, on his command, this afternoon, with a bit of stick, had struck down a Vosk gull, that the shafts he fashioned, whether from Ka-la-na or tem-wood, would be well fletched. She had been watching him make the bow, apparently, for most of the afternoon and evening. When I entered she dropped her head, saying "Greetings, my Master's Captain." She, too, wore binding fiber on her throat, and a bit of silk. I saw that Thurnock had had her put a flower in her hair, a talender. Kneeling, she looked up at him, and he gave her head a rough shake, getting shavings in her hair. She put her head down, smiling. "Where is the Kettle Slave!" I cried.
"Here, Master," said Telima, not pleasantly, entering the room and dropping to her knees before me.
On her throat as well were wound the five coils of binding fiber, declaring her slave.
Of the four girls only she did not wear silk, for she was only a Kettle Slave. She wore a brief tunic only of rep-cloth, already stained with grease and the spatterings of the kitchen. Her hair was not combed, and there was dirt on her knees and face. Her face was tired, and strained, and red, flushed from the heat of the cooking fires. Her hands had been blistered from scrubbing and burned from the cooking, roughened and reddened from the cleaning and the washing of the bowls and goblets. I found great pleasure in seeing the proud Telima, who had been my Mistress, as mere Kettle Slave.
"Master?" she asked.
"Make a feast," I said, "Kettle Slave."
"Yes, Master," she said.
"Thurnock," cried I, "secure the slaves."
"Yes, my Captain," he boomed.
Midice stood up, timidly. Her had was before her mouth. "What are you going to do, Master?" she asked.
"We are taking you out," I cried, "to be marked and collared!"
The three girls looked at one another in fear.
Already Turnock was putting them in a coffle, blinding the right wrist of each. Before we set out we broke open the great bottle of paga, and Thurnock, Clitus and I clashed goblets and emptied them of their swirling fires. Then we forced each of the girls, choking and sputtering, to themselves upturn a goblet, swilling down as best they could the firey draught. I recall Midice standing there in her silk, teh leather on her wrists, shaking, coughing, paga on her mouth, looking at me with fear.
"And then," I cried, "we will return and make a feast!"
Thurnock, Clitus and I once more clashed and emptied goblets, and then, leading Midice, first in the coffle, by the lead end of the binding fiber, I stumbled through the door, finding my way down the stairs, with the others, hunting for a smithy.