by John Norman
“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.”
“Why is that?” I asked.
“You did not turn over Talena, once the daughter of Marlenus of Ar, to the resistance, to the Delta Brigade, when she was in your power,” he said, “but returned her to power, thus abetting the usurpation.”
“I see,” I said.
“You cannot return to Ar,” he said. “Too, secondly, you have her, and have not immediately returned her to the justice of Ar, and are thus in defiance of the edict of Marlenus, Ubar of Glorious Ar, willfully concealing a fugitive, a traitress.”
“I see,” I said.
“Where is she?” asked Seremides.
“I have no idea where she is,” I said.
“Seven thousand tarns of gold, double weight!” snapped Seremides.
“No,” I said.
“No woman is worth that much,” said Seremides.
“Honor is worth much more,” I said.
“Surrender her,” said Seremides.
“I do not know her whereabouts,” I said.
“You are her master!” cried Seremides. “That is clear from the records, from the testimony of Tolnar and Venlisius!”
“I was her master,” I said. “It has been a long time. By now she may have fallen to another. Lapses have occurred. Who knows what collar is now on her neck. She may be a camp slave, a paga girl, a field slave, a caged brothel slut. Others may now have as much claim on her as I.” Possession, particularly after a lengthy interval, is often regarded as decisive, by praetors, archons, magistrates, scribes of the law, and such. What is of most importance to the law is not so much that a particular individual owns a slave as that she is owned by someone, that she is absolutely and perfectly owned. It is the same with a kaiila, a verr, a tarsk, and such.
“Speak!” cried Seremides.
It was true that the lovely Talena, given what had occurred in the Metellan district, was now no more than another slave, one perhaps more beautiful than most, but doubtless less beautiful than many others, but I was not at all sure that she was still mine. To be sure, there was another sense in which the lovely Talena was not merely another slave. The slave that was now she was wanted by the high justice of Ar, and might bring a bounty price of ten thousand golden tarn disks, tarn disks of Ar, and of double weight.
“Where is she!” cried Seremides.
“I have no idea,” I said.
The rain began to fall more heavily.
The tarn screamed in protest. I thought it well to bring it to shelter.
“There are lanterns,” I said, gesturing past Seremides, to the left. We could see some three or four lanterns, perhaps four hundred yards away, over the dark trees.
“Liar!” cried Seremides. “You have had your chance! We shall find her!”
I lifted the buckler free, swiftly, and interposed it between my body and the flash of steel which, with a spitting of sparks, caromed off the edged, wet, curved surface, disappearing in the night, over the neck of the tarn, to my right. At the same time Seremides, with a curse, pulled his tarn away and fled. I did not pursue him. I drew the tarn northward. I would return to the cots.
“Tarl Cabot, tarnsman!” cried Tajima. Ichiro was behind him, with a lantern. With them were several riders, a ten, with its officer.
“I am well!” I called. “Return to camp!”
“The guard has not returned!” said Tajima.
“He will return by morning,” I said. “To camp!”
“What has occurred, Tarl Cabot, tarnsman?” called Tajima.
“Strange matters,” I said, “of which I understand little.”
I loosened the guide straps and the tarn extended its head, snapped its mighty wings, spraying water back, and sped toward the shelter of the cots.
I was followed by the others.
Seremides, I had learned, had one or more men in the camp. He believed Talena was somewhere alive. He apparently thought me privy to her whereabouts, which was mistaken. Either Priest-Kings or Kurii must have taken Talena from her captors on the height of the Central Cylinder. The false Ubara, the puppet Ubara, it seemed, had fallen. The robes of the Ubara had been exchanged for a rag, that of a slave, according to the decision of free men. The chasm on Gor between the free woman and the slave girl is momentous and unbridgeable, the difference between a person and a property, between an honored, awesome personage, the exalted possessor of a Home Stone, and an animal, a beast, a mere beast, a form of stock purchasable in a market. What, then, in view of such a chasm, would be the distance between a Ubara and a slave, even a lovely slave? Talena was no longer of use to Cos or Tyros, or conspirators and traitors. Her primary use now, if any, was that of an item of goods which, given an unusual political situation, might be exchanged for ten thousand tarns of gold, of double weight. I did not know her whereabouts.
I wondered who did.
In any event, it was no concern of mine.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
TARNCAMP IS ABANDONED
Doubtless the smoke could be seen for pasangs. As the huts and sheds, the warehouses and bath houses, and cook houses, dormitories and arsenals, and the dojo, collapsed in flaming timbers and planks, hundreds of men, in columns, following wagons, drawn by tharlarion, took the mysterious well-rutted road which had led eastward, southeastward,
from Tarncamp and the training area. By evening the debris of these areas would cool into blackened wood and warm, gray ash, and these residues of the conflagration, extinguished, would be scattered about, broken up, and dragged by designated work gangs into the forest. In two or three years I supposed the forest would reclaim these hitherto cleared areas, and there would remain few records and clues as to what had taken place here, where timber had been harvested and men trained for wars whose projected venues were unknown, and possibly remote. In any event, Tarncamp and its plaza of training were being abandoned.
“Do you not march?” asked a fellow, a pack on his shoulder, slung over the haft of a spear.
“Later,” I informed him.
“You are not aflight,” he said.
“No,” I said.
The tarns, from the plaza of training, had been early aflight, their squadrons led by Tajima.
“Are you out of favor?” he asked.
“Perhaps,” I said.
“Put yourself on your sword,” he said. “It will be quicker.”
“Join your unit,” I advised him.
I did not know if Lord Nishida had further need for me or not. In any event, Pertinax and I had been invited to accompany him, with his guard, and the invitations of daimyos, however politely extended, are not to be ignored. I did not doubt that Tajima had reported to Lord Nishida my flight of the preceding late evening, and my seeming encounter with an unidentified tarnsman, an encounter I had refused to explain to him. I did not begrudge the conveyance of this sort of intelligence to Lord Nishida, nor did I resent Tajima being the modality of its conveyance. He owed that duty to his daimyo, as I might owe similar duties to captains in whose commands I might serve, or to those codes which did so much to define and clarify my caste, the scarlet caste, that of the warriors.
“Look,” said Pertinax, pointing.
“I see,” I said.
In one of the wagons trundling past were several contract women, among them Sumomo and Hana, both of whom were under contract, as I understood it, to Lord Nishida.
Neither woman signified that she recognized us.
This is not unusual, in public, with such women.
I wondered what each might look like, slave clad.
But then I recalled they were contract women.
I speculated that Tajima would not have minded having the lovely, haughty Sumomo at his feet, not as a contract woman, of course, but as something far less, and far more desirable.
Then the wagon had disappeared amongst the trees.
I was sure Lord Nishida did not trust me, but I did not feel slighted by any suspicions he might harbor. In his place I would doubtless have entertained a similar wariness. He did not know me, I was not of the Pani, I had not turned a failed assassin, Licinius, over to him for the expected justice of prolonged torture, and there was the matter of yesterday night, when I had mysteriously left the camp and had apparently engaged in a clandestine rendezvous with a stranger. I doubted that, under similar circumstances, I would have trusted myself.
He must have need of me, I thought. I doubted the Pani were indulgent with respect to redundant personnel, hangers-on, parasites, passive burdens. But this is not unlike Goreans, as a whole. They see no point to sheltering and sustaining those who can work and do not do so. They are commonly sold to quarry gangs, harbor dredgers, laborers in the latifundia, the great farms, and such. Sometimes they are simply put outside the walls, naked, for beasts, human or otherwise. Even brigands have no use for them, unless it be to sell them, or use them as feed for sleen. But there are few such cases, for it is part of the Gorean ethos that one, if able, should work. And the capacity for work is determined by physicians, neither by politics nor rhetorics. Perhaps if the caste and council democracies, so to speak, had taken a different turn such individuals might have constituted a constituency, so to speak, exploitable by the unscrupulous, but the several forms of democracy, of aristocracies, of oligarchies, of tyrannies, and such, amongst which power tended to be divided, had not taken such a turn. Theft is rare on Gor, and so, too, is ambition masked as compassion.
A cage wagon rolled past, in which, turning and twisting about one another, agitated, were several larls. These were the beasts, primarily, who had patrolled outside the wands. They were trained from cubhood, to respond to secret commands. Accordingly, one who knew these commands might command them, venture beyond the wands, and so on. Ashigaru prowled the edges of the road, lest any of Lord Nishida’s minions, primarily mercenaries, be tempted to avail themselves of an unobstructed highway to another prince, one with perhaps a deeper purse.
Some smoke hung in the air, from the burning.
More wagons took their way past, and more men, afoot, with packs.
I had in the past noted certain tharlarion, their comings and goings. From the departure of one to its return I had counted, on the average, six days. I took it then that whatever destination might lie at the end of the road to the east was some three or so days distant, on foot. Most of the camp would, of course, move on foot. I supposed those on tarnback might complete their journey in a few Ahn.
I conjectured that I knew the mysterious destination. Had it not been hinted at, even long ago, by Pertinax? But I did not anticipate what I would encounter there.
“Look,” said Pertinax, approvingly, for he was becoming male, and Gorean, “— slaves.”
“Yes,” I said.
The lead girl, on a slack, coarse tether, fashioned of Gorean hemp, was fastened by the neck to a ring on the back of a wagon. She followed it, on her tether, some seven or eight feet behind. The others followed her in line, all on the same rope. The ends of the tether were only at the ring, before the first girl, and behind the neck of the last girl. In this way, when the rope is knotted about the neck of each girl, save for the first and last girl, there being no free end, there is no access, save perhaps by a knife, or such, to a means of undoing the knot. The small wrists, too, of each girl were corded together behind their backs. They walked well, maintaining the lovely, erect, graceful posture of the female slave, rather like that of a dancer, which was by now second nature to them. Free women may be slovenly, and shuffle, or slouch or slump to their heart’s content, but such luxuries are not permitted to the collar girl, for she is owned by men. They also kept their heads up, and their eyes forward. Girls in coffle are often forbidden to look about, but are to keep their line, their head position, and so on. Too, they are often forbidden speech in coffle. Here and there, as another such wagon passed, it, too, with its coffle of beauties, I noted a switch-bearing Ashigaru in attendance, doubtless lest one of the slaves be tempted to look about, or be so foolish as to attempt to communicate, or even whisper, to another of the “beads on the slaver’s necklace.” The girls following the wagons were barefoot, and tunicked. Slave girls are often conveyed in slave wagons, their ankles chained about a central bar locked in place and aligned with the long axis of the wagon, but these were afoot. Most commonly in coffle, however, though not in this march, the girls have their hands free but, naked, are chained together by the neck. Too, they are permitted, within reason, to look about, to converse, and such. In the common coffle there is usually much freedom, particularly when being conducted between cities. They are normally naked, to save on laundering, to prevent the soiling of garmenture, and such. These slaves, however, as noted, were tunicked. I speculated that this was permitted not so much for their sake, for they were slaves, as to reduce the temptation which they might otherwise present to the hundreds of males in the march. On this point I wondered if that psychological stratagem, if such it was, was well founded, as there are few sights as sexually provocative as the sight of a lovely, young female in a slave tunic.
I watched another coffle pass by.
Women are so beautiful!
It is no wonder men make them slaves.
“Thank you for abiding,” said Lord Nishida.
I bowed.
“It will be easier,” he observed, “whe
n we are beyond the smoke.”
“Yes,” I said.
He was with a guard of some twenty Ashigaru, with officers. The captain of his guard, Ito, was prominent among these men. I found I did not much approve of Ito, and this assessment, I fear, was darkly reciprocated.
As I could, I examined the countenance of Lord Nishida, but it appeared benign and pleasant. I detected nothing indicative of displeasure in that bland facade which might indifferently mask either approbation or menace. Perhaps, I thought, I might read the heart of the daimyo more easily in the countenance of his captain than in his own. I had no doubt, as noted, that Lord Nishida knew of last night’s flighted interview over the forest with some unrecognized tarnsman. Perhaps he suspected me of having had the tarn of the guard drugged, which guard had, incidentally, as Seremides had assured me, returned unharmed to camp.
“Would you like to speak with me?” I asked.
“It is always a pleasure to speak with you,” said Lord Nishida. “Of what would you like to speak?”
“Of nothing,” I said.
“The smoke is unpleasant,” said Lord Nishida. “Let us address ourselves to the road.”
We fell in then with a company of Ashigaru, their glaives shouldered.
It did not surprise me that Lord Nishida accompanied his men on foot. The wagons were for supplies, for contract women, for the ill and lame, and such, if there were any. Commanders, unless wounded, incapacitated, or such, are not goods or freight, so to speak. Had there been kaiila he would doubtless have ridden, but there were no kaiila. Too, though some daimyos might have had recourse to sedan chairs, palanquins, or such, Lord Nishida, whom I had seen as a warrior, and one of some formidableness, would eschew such.
I wondered if he knew the location of the former Ubara of Ar, Talena, once the daughter of Marlenus, Ubar of Ubars.
Surely she could have been taken as she had been taken, from the very height of the Central Cylinder, if Seremides’ account was at all correct, only by means of either Kurii or Priest-Kings.
I considered putting the question to him, directly, but did not do so. It is unwise to move in kaissa when the board is obscure, when the number of pieces, their nature, and their positions are uncertain.