by John Norman
Expecting to be returned to Earth, to power and riches, they would commonly find themselves incarcerated, perhaps thrust into tiny cages, bewildered, grasping the bars, awaiting their sale.
Why not?
They had served their purpose.
Let them now be good for a little something further, say, whatever handful of coins they might bring on the block.
“What are we to do?” asked Pertinax.
“Link me with those who hired you,” I said.
I do not know if he slept then.
For my part, I knew that the Priest-Kings, for some reason, had arranged to have me set down on the beach, which was not far away, no more than a quarter of a pasang from this hut.
I was then certain that another was to meet me, one who truly stood in the service of Priest-Kings.
On the morrow, I would go again to the beach, to the point where I had been landed.
It was there, surely, I was to be met.
It rained heavily that night, the storm coming in from Thassa. I supposed that the seas might have been high for two or three days, perhaps for hundreds of pasangs offshore. That might delay the arrival of a ship, one approaching from the west, say, from Tyros or Cos. Gorean vessels, incidentally, are usually shallow-drafted, and usually tend to keep in sight of land. Few would risk the open sea in an inauspicious season. In storms, many would beach. On the other hand, ships from Tyros and Cos, if they were to reach shores to their east, could not coast, but must address themselves to the open sea, and for days.
I decided that on the morrow I would return to the beach.
Chapter Four
A SAIL
I stood back amongst the trees, looking out to sea.
It was early morning.
I had left the hut of Pertinax a few Ehn earlier.
It was very pleasant near the shore, with the smell of Thassa, with the cool, penetrant air, the sense of the salt of her churning waves, the sound of the surf, the incoming tide, the wash of sea weed on the shore, the water with its soft, fluid rush across the sand and amongst the stones, and then its circuitous return, and then its advance, and then again its return, and the wheeling and intermittent crying offshore of broad-winged coast gulls. Too, as it had rained the preceding night, the higher rocks and the sand above the tide line were still dark with damp. The forest, too, with its moist soil and its glistening, rustling canopies of wet, dripping leaves, shaken in the wind, had about it its sweetness of life.
I wondered if human beings were good for such a world.
Yet if they did not inhabit her would such a world not have been something of a waste, for who, then, would know how beautiful she was?
The Gorean, incidentally, is not a soiling and a plague upon his world, nor is he so arrogant as to deem himself superior to it, its guardian or steward. He regards himself, rather, as a part of her, as much so as a leaf, or tree, but an unusual part, of course, a part which knows itself a part. He is a partaker of its warmth and cold, its winters and summers, its light and darkness, its day and its night, its storms and serenities. He loves his world but he does not understand it for what it is not. It is beautiful but, too, it is awesome and terrible. With equanimity, not caring, it brings forth life and death, flourishing and destruction, growth and decay. It is a world that contains not only the beauty of grass and the blossoming of the talendar but the fangs of the ost, the coils of the hith, the jaws of the larl, the frenzies of flocking, feeding jards, the sudden, wrenching, twisting strike of the nine-gilled shark, the claws of the sleen, the beak and talons of the tarn.
The beach seemed deserted.
No furrows marked where the keel of a long ship might have been drawn ashore.
The horizon seemed clear, gray, and cool, but clear.
It had seemed likely to me that I would have been met by agents of Priest-Kings, but I had encountered only Pertinax, and a woman called ‘Constantina’. These, I was sure, stood in place of Kurii, some Kurii. How much they knew of their role in these matters I was not sure. The human agents of Kurii were seldom enlightened, I supposed, as to the ramifications and depths of the plans of their employers, nor the remote objectives of such plans. I was aware of the usual dispositions of their female agents, once they had fulfilled their purposes. They would not be returned to Earth, with the promised emoluments of their service, riches, at least. This might lead to complications, a request for explanations, inquiries, and such. Kurii, as many predators, are fond of concealment, until they act. Too, their female agents could not be well integrated into Gorean society, with its orderings, its clan and caste arrangements, its rank, distance, and hierarchy. Such women did not even have the protection of a Home Stone. Too, they were, like slaves, selected for their beauty, and this placed them in jeopardy in a world such as Gor. A tabuk doe, so to speak, amongst larls, will not be long without her collar. Gorean males are not men of Earth. I was less certain of the fate of male agents, such as Pertinax. It seems there would be little point in sending them to the quarries or mines. Perhaps they would simply be killed. Certainly they would not be allowed to withdraw from the services of Kurii. That would be highly unlikely. I supposed they might be kept, then, to be used again. Knowing a native language of Earth they might be of continuing value as agents. Too, they could be rewarded on Gor, if not on Earth, where curiosity might be aroused, and in ways which would be unlikely on Earth, but appealing to males. Indeed, many males, one supposes, might prefer Gorean rewards to those of Earth, for example gold, power, slaves, and such.
In moving to the beach I had, as was my training, been alert to a variety of particulars, movements and shadows, the integrity of brush, the branches overhead, the nature of the ground underfoot, was a leaf pressed down here and there, was that a pebble possibly dislodged, such things. There was nothing unusual in this, and the circumspection and alertness involved, the care taken in one’s passage, would have been typical of one of my caste, and certainly in negotiating an unfamiliar and perhaps dangerous terrain. Too, I suspected there might be another, or others about. Was I not to be met?
But no rendezvous had taken place, not with agents of Priest-Kings.
It occurred to me that such an agent, or agents, might have been waiting, and had been killed.
On the other hand, I had detected little or no uneasiness on the part of Pertinax or his slave, Constantina, which might have appertained to such a deed.
To be sure, they might know nothing of it. Kurii might know. But why would Kurii have agents of theirs meet me here at all?
It would have to do, one supposed, with the intruders, with flights of tarns, but I understood nothing of this.
Or had such things to do with Priest-Kings, and their plans?
And were Kurii here intent on turning something to their own advantage?
From the shelter of the trees, I looked across the water.
The horizon was still clear.
When I had left the hut of Pertinax, or the hut he utilized, he, and Cecily, had been asleep. I did not think Constantina had been asleep. To be sure she appeared to be asleep.
It interested me that Pertinax had identified Constantina as his superior. Indeed, he had informed me that she had recruited him.
It seemed unlikely a slave would be so charged, so privileged.
I heard the tiny sound a few yards away.
I had been waiting for it.
Constantina, you see, had not truly been asleep. I had been reasonably sure of that.
In approaching the shore, I had left an easy trail leading to the beach, but had then doubled back, and waited in the shelter of some trees, a few yards back, and to the side, from which point of relative concealment I could both survey the beach and monitor my original trail.
As I expected, Constantina was moving toward the beach. Interestingly, she did not seem to be following the trail I had left, quite obviously, I had thought. Rather she was just moving cautiously, directly, toward the beach. I had little doubt she was trying to spy on
me, though, given her clumsiness, and her apparent lack of awareness of the trail I had left, the word is perhaps more complimentary than it needed be.
Kurii would know, of course, that the coordinates of my landing would be known to Priest-Kings. Indeed, they were specified by Priest-Kings.
These coordinates, too, or, better, the locale in question, would have been made clear to Pertinax and Constantina.
The agent, or agents, of Priest-Kings, it seemed, then, were either late for their appointment, or had been killed, and their bodies disposed of. That Constantina had come to the beach, to spy on me, suggested to me that either the agent, or agents, of Priest-Kings had not yet arrived, and Constantina was concerned to detect their presence, or, if they had arrived, and been disposed of, Constantina was unaware of that fact.
As indicated earlier, I was reasonably sure that neither Constantina nor Pertinax were harboring any surreptitious knowledge of murders recently wrought. If such murders had taken place I did not think that Kurii would have risked entrusting Constantina or Pertinax with a cognizance so dreadful and solemn, lest it be betrayed by some careless word, some inadvertent expression, a surprising hesitation, some gauche, unwary phrase, or pause.
There had been a storm last night, and it had moved in from the west, from Thassa. That might have delayed a ship, as she hove to, or was blown off course. Too, who knew what weathers might have prevailed in the last several days.
Priest-Kings, you see, seldom use their own ships in the vicinity of Gor’s surface. They tend to protect their mystery or privacy zealously. The dark, palisaded Sardar itself, the abode of Priest-Kings, is sealed away. It is sacred, and forbidden. Accordingly, the agents of Priest-Kings, on the surface of Gor, tend to move as Goreans would move, and commonly appear indistinguishable from ordinary Goreans. The sight of large metal vessels, coming and going, might make the Priest-Kings seem too comprehensible, remarkable, and powerful, but comprehensible. Humans are likely to fear best what they cannot see; what they can see they may investigate. Too, the caste of Initiates, which claims to mediate between humans and Priest-Kings, with their sacrifices, and such, would obviously prefer for Priest-Kings to remain as invisible and mysterious as possible. Thus they can interpret their “will” as they please, as the wind blows, so to speak, or, perhaps more accurately, as the gold depresses the scales. To be sure, many Initiates doubtless take themselves seriously.
Constantina was quite near now.
She was doing her best to move stealthily. Whatever her various qualities, properties, values, and virtues might be, which might make her of interest to a man, her strong suite was obviously not woodcraft. She was looking toward the beach, and, forward, from side to side. She seemed puzzled, that she did not see me.
Where could I be?
Suddenly she stiffened, pulled back, against me, her cry stifled by my hand across her mouth.
“Tal,” I said to her.
She squirmed, helpless.
I held her for a time, until her struggles subsided, until she knew herself my prisoner. I then removed my hand from across her mouth, but held her by the arms, from behind.
“What are you doing here, girl?” I asked.
“‘Girl’!” she said.
“‘Girl’, ‘Slave’,” I said.
She struggled, again, in my arms, held from behind, but could not free herself.
“Girl, slave,” I said.
“Nothing!” she said.
“I think we should have a talk,” I said.
“I was come to fetch water!” she said.
“You cannot drink the water of Thassa,” I said. “If there is a spring about, it is not here.”
“I lost my way,” she said.
“Where is your yoke, with the attached buckets?” I asked. “Doubtless you would look well, carrying water in such a device.”
“I was looking for the spring,” she said.
I then drew her by the right arm, she stumbling, to the edge of the trees, at the border of the beach.
There I thrust her back against a small tree and, pulling her arms behind her, fastened her wrists together, behind the tree, so that she stood before me, fastened in place.
She pulled at the ropes a bit, futilely.
She looked at me, angrily. “Let me go!” she said.
“Why were you following me?” I asked.
“I was not following you!” she said.
“You are aware that you can be seen easily, from the shore?” I said.
She looked about, frightened. “Yes?” she said.
“There may be intruders about,” I said. “I saw several disembarked yesterday. Pertinax tells me that there have been many of them. Some may still be about. Others may arrive.”
“I do not understand,” she said.
“I thought you might,” I said.
“This is Gor,” she said. “Do not leave me here, a woman, bound as I am!”
“Then you acknowledge yourself a woman?” I said.
“Of course!” she said.
“And you are not a man?”
“No,” she said, “I am not a man — I suppose.”
“You suppose?” I asked.
“I am not a man,” she said.
“You are quite different?” I said.
“Perhaps,” she said, jerking at her bonds.
“Perhaps?” I inquired.
“Yes,” she said. “I am quite different!”
“I wonder if you understand that,” I said. “That you are radically different, wholly and absolutely different, wonderfully different.”
“Wonderfully different?” she said.
“Yes,” I said, “but you have not yet learned your womanhood.”
“I hate being a woman!” she said.
“That is because you have not yet been put at the feet of men,” I said.
“Untie me,” she said.
“I like you as you are,” I said.
“Untie me!” she said.
“Free yourself,” I said.
“I cannot!” she said.
“Then you will remain as you are,” I said.
“I was not following you,” she said. “I was fetching water, I lost my way.”
“And forgot containers, in which water might be brought?”
She was silent.
“Perhaps, rather,” I said, “you wished merely to look upon the sea, in the early morning, to hear the gulls, and such.”
“Yes,” she said, “that is it!”
“But you feared to be caught, unengaged in labors, lest Pertinax, your master, beat you for dalliance?”
“You have found me out,” she said, sadly. “Please do not inform my master.”
“Your severe master?”
“Yes,” she said, head down, “I do not wish to be beaten.”
“You have never been beaten in your life,” I said.
She looked up, angrily.
“It is hard to know whether there is a man in Pertinax or not,” I said. “If there is, it is hard to see, for the spineless urt.”
A flicker of a smile crossed her countenance.
How she despised him!
Women despise men for weakness, and fear them for strength.
“And I doubt you have ever looked on anything,” I said, “without considering how it might be put to your advantage.”
“That is not true!” she said.
“Perhaps when you were younger,” I said.
“Let me go!” she said.
“You are a mercenary, of sorts,” I said.
“I am a mere, worthless slave,” she said, humbly, “only a Gorean slave girl.”
“We are going to have a talk,” I said.
“Release me!” she demanded.
I stood back, and, for a time, regarded her.
“Do not look at me like that!” she said.
“Why should I not do so?” I inquired.
“It, it makes me uncomfortable!” she said.
To be sure
, the tunic was a bit long, and heavy, but her arms, at any rate, were bared.
“Please,” she said.
“A slave,” I said, “should hope that she would be so looked upon, and should hope that she would find favor in a man’s eyes.”
“Beast!” she said.
“You are a slave, are you not?” I asked.
“Certainly!” she said.
“And your master is Pertinax?” I said.
“— Yes!” she said.
“What is your brand?” I asked.
“I am not branded!” she said. “That is a cruel thing to do, and Pertinax, my master, has not had it done to me.”
“A slave should be branded,” I said.
“I am not branded,” she said.
“Do I have your word on that?” I asked.
“Certainly!” she said.
I then went to her tunic, and, on the left side, lifted the tunic to the hip.
“Monster!” she wept, and pulled at the ropes.
The common branding site is the left thigh, just under the hip. The common tunic, of course, covers the brand. A side-slit tunic makes the brand easily detectible, and certain other garments, as well, for example the common camisk.
“Do not!” she said, pulling away.
Some masters, after all, are left-handed.
“Beast, beast!” she said.
I smoothed down the tunic, on both sides, and she pressed back, against the slim trunk of the tree, and turned her head, angrily, and looked to the side.
“You are not branded,” I said, “at least not obviously.”
“I told you that,” she said, angrily.