by John Norman
I heard more shouts now, and was sure the first wagons had emerged from the forest.
I saw Sumomo and Hana, shading their eyes, emerge from the portal on their closed wagon and, standing on its small porch, strain to see what might be the cause of the ebullition.
Tharlarion, down the long line, lifted their heads, distended their nostrils, and bellowed. They could smell the water, perhaps the verdant grazing near the river.
Pertinax was with me.
Knowing that we should reach the Alexandra in the late morning we had freed Cecily and Jane.
“Master!” cried Cecily, elated.
“Heel us,” I snapped.
Dutifully the girls fell in behind us, on our left.
No matter how indulgent or permissive one is with slaves, they must never be permitted to forget they are slaves. If necessary, they may be whipped, to remind them. Indeed, some masters feel that a slave should be occasionally whipped, if only to help them keep in mind that they are slaves. To be sure, given Gorean discipline, a slave is seldom likely to be in any doubt about the matter. Certain prosaic regularities contribute to this purpose, that the slave will commonly kneel upon entering the master’s presence, that she may speak only when having the master’s permission to do so, that she must often kneel and kiss the whip or switch in the morning, that she may not clothe herself without his permission, that she may not take food before the master, that she may not leave the domicile without his permission, and she must give an account of her intentions before leaving and an account of her activities upon returning, and so on. Many such things remind her of her bondage. Too, one must not forget what occurs at her master’s slave ring.
“I will relish a bathing in the river,” said Pertinax.
“I did not know barbarians were fastidious,” I remarked.
I feared all on the march, with the exception of the contract women and Saru were the much the worse for the past few days.
“May we bathe, Master?” asked Cecily.
“You will be better off to seek oils and a heated tub,” I said. “The river will be cold.”
Too, I thought the slaves should soon be better garmented, for in spite of the late summer, so to speak, it was now fall, and the weather, with the season, must soon chill.
The march had certainly been cold enough and miserable enough, even for the men.
“Tarl Cabot, tarnsman!” called Tajima, hurrying beside the wagons, toward us. He, with the cavalry, had come ahead, days ago.
We bowed to one another. He was uncomfortable, I had gathered, with the clasping of hands, even the mariner’s grip, wrist to wrist. Much varies from culture to culture.
But, clearly, he was pleased to see me, and I him.
He looked at Pertinax.
“Say ‘Tal’,” I said to Pertinax.
“Tal,” said Pertinax.
“Tal,” said Tajima, pleasantly. There is an order to such things, and Tajima, correctly or incorrectly, regarded himself as senior to Pertinax, who was a mere barbarian. That he had addressed me first, rather than I him, was appropriate, given that I was his captain, so to speak, with respect to the cavalry. I occasionally erred in these rituals, but these lapses tended to be accepted with good grace, being attributed to my innocent lack of couth, and that no affront was intended. Amongst those who know what they are doing in such waters things can become subtly tense. I sometimes sensed that social duels were in progress which were simply beyond my comprehension.
“Look,” whispered Pertinax.
Both he and Tajima bowed as Nodachi passed, going forward.
“I did not know he was with the march,” I said. Certainly I had not seen him.
“He was not with the march, but behind it,” said Tajima. “He followed the march, to protect its rear.”
“I see,” I said.
“You are all very filthy,” said Tajima.
Cecily and Jane lowered their heads. The female slave is expected to keep herself neat, well-groomed, clean, combed, brushed, and so forth. She is, after all, not a free woman. Too, she is usually expected to keep herself at her “block measurements,” namely the measurements she was sold at. Accordingly, regimens of diet and exercise may be forced upon her. Again, she is a slave, not a free woman. Much may be concealed beneath the “Robes of Concealment,” but a slave tunic conceals almost nothing.
“How is Sumomo?” asked Tajima.
“I think you will find her clean and dry, and nasty, as usual,” I said.
“Excellent,” said Tajima.
“How excellent?” I asked.
“I can continue to think of her as fit for the collar.”
“I see,” I said.
“But come along,” he said. “See the river camp.”
“We will spend the winter there,” I said.
“No,” said Tajima.
“I do not understand,” I said.
“Come along,” he said.
We moved toward the head of the column, it now arrested, as most of the drovers, and others, had abandoned the wagons to hurry forward, to see at last before them a vista, and not the gloomy, enclosing walls of a seemingly endless corridor of trees.
“What is it, Master? What is it?” called a slave to a passing guard, but then she cried out in fear, turned her back, crouched down, and covered her head with her hands and arms, and was struck several times with his switch.
“Curiosity,” said the guard, “is not becoming in a kajira.”
“Yes, Master,” she wept. “Forgive me, Master!”
It is well known hat kajirae are amongst the most curious of beasts. How eager they are to be informed, to be brought up to date, to learn the latest! They will beg, wheedle, scratch, and scramble for the tiniest particle of news. The girl who knows something the others do not is as a Ubara in the slave quarters. How she is pressed! How all hang upon her superior, sly glances, her least, carefully rationed word!
How pleasant it is sometimes to frustrate them, and see them pout and squirm in ignorance, tears in their eyes. In this way, too, of course, they may be reminded that they are no more than slaves.
We came then, at last, to an opening in the trees, and stood upon a rise, from which a road led gently downward through the valley toward the river.
There were more than four or five hundred men there, come forward from the column.
I could see Lord Nishida and his guard making their way down toward the river. Some from the shore, and the structures there, were climbing to meet them.
The sky was very blue, and cloudless.
In it, being exercised, were several tarns.
The river, broad and apparently navigable, lay some pasang or so in the distance.
“That is the Alexandra,” I said.
“Yes,” said Tajima.
Its width could not begin to approximate that of the Vosk, in much of Vosk’s length, but it was wide, wide enough, some hundred yards or so in width.
“It is very beautiful,” said Cecily.
She, I fear, had not yet accustomed herself to the beauties of a natural world, but still thought in terms of another world, a grayer world, a more tragic world, a world in which, incredibly, pollutants and poisons were routinely discharged into the atmosphere, into the very air its creatures, large and small, innocent and guilty alike, must breathe. But it was true, I supposed, the vista was indeed beautiful.
“Quarters have been prepared for you, near the shore, near the cots,” said Tajima.
Orders were being given, behind us, by various wagon masters, and drovers, Pani, mercenaries, and all, began to withdraw to the wagons. In a few Ehn the tharlarion would again grunt and bellow, and the wagons would again trundle forward, and now downward.
“What is that large building, that structure near the shore?” I asked.
It seemed large enough to house an insula. It must have been seven or eight stories high.
“Beyond that,” said Tajima, “though you cannot see them, are several galleys.”
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“But what is the large structure?” I asked.
“You do not know?” inquired Tajima.
“No,” I said.
“That,” said Tajima, “is the ship of Tersites.”
Chapter Thirty
I SPEAK WITH AËTIUS
I felt small, standing on the shore, beside that towering, mighty body, that massive structure, held in its building frame, sloping down to the water.
“There is much to be done,” said Aëtius, once of the arsenal at Port Kar, apprentice to the mad, half-blind shipwright, Tersites, once of the same city, now an embittered expatriate. “The rudder has not been hung at the sternpost.”
“A single rudder?” I asked.
“Yes,” he said.
The common Gorean galley has two side-rudders, each with its helmsman.
“The masts have yet to be added,” said Aëtius. “There will be six, two aft, two amidships, and two forward. They will be square-rigged, with four spars to the aft and amidship’s masts, and three to the forward masts.”
The usual Gorean ship has a single mast, which is lateen-rigged. In a fighting ship this mast is lowered before battle. Usually the Gorean ship carries three or more sails, to be fastened, as needed, to the long, sloping yard, depending on wind conditions. The smallest sail is the “storm sail.”
“The masts are fixed, permanent?” I asked.
“Yes,” he said.
The lateen-rigged galley can sail closer to the wind, but, for a given length of yard, it exposes less surface to the wind. The square sails, reefed according to conditions, are all-weather sails, permanent sails. The masts need not be lowered to accommodate changings of sails. Square-rigged vessels are not unknown on Gor. The dragons of Torvaldsland, for example, are square-rigged. Too, they have a single rudder, the “steering board,” which is located on the right side of the vessel, as one faces forward. On Earth vessels of centuries ago the “steering board” on the right side, as one faces forward, apparently gave rise to the expression “starboard.” The “port side,” or left side of the vessel, facing forward, at least on Gor, and perhaps on Earth, may have received its name from keeping harbor buoys to one’s left as the port is entered. This custom regulates harbor traffic, before a berth is reached. Leaving the port, of course, as one is reversing direction, the same line of buoys is once again on the left. This may be a mariner’s tradition brought from Earth. I do not know. Road traffic on Gor, naturally, keeps to the left. In this fashion, one’s weapon hand, if one is right-handed, faces the passing stranger. In Gorean, as in many languages, the same word serves for an enemy and a stranger. To be sure, not all strangers are enemies, and not all enemies, perhaps unfortunately, are strangers. I noted that the ship was carvel-built, with fitted planking, as opposed to being clinker-built, or with overlapping planking. The dragons of Torvaldsland are clinker-built. In this respect they ship more water, but they are more elastic in rough seas, and thus less likely to break apart.
“As you will note, in the frame,” said Aëtius, “the keel is unusually deep.”
“The ship is large,” I said.
“Even so,” he said.
This information made me somewhat apprehensive, for it suggested that the designer of the ship was planning it not for swiftness and maneuverability, common features of a Gorean galley, even the so-called “round ships,” but for stability in serious weather. Most Gorean ships put into port, or beach, frequently, even daily, being light enough to be drawn onto the beach. Many Gorean pilots are reluctant to venture beyond the sight of land, and open-sea voyages of more than a few days are rare, except in Torvaldsland. A ship of this stability and size, of course, might remain at sea indefinitely. I had the sense that this vessel had been designed with an unusual voyage in mind.
“Such a vessel,” I said, “might sail even beyond Cos and Tyros.”
“Perhaps,” he said.
“Beyond even the Farther Islands,” I said.
“Perhaps,” he said, looking away.
“There are no shearing blades, at least as yet,” I said. Such blades are designed to shear away a galley’s oars, thus crippling her, and preparing her for a ramming, usually amidships, which is a blow of considerable force, easily sufficient to rupture and flood the prey vessel, and occasionally sufficient to snap her in two. One of the dangers of ramming is the possibility of fixing one’s ram in the victim and inadvertently sharing her fate. The structure of the ram is designed, naturally, to minimize this eventuality, and to facilitate its withdrawal by back-oaring. Indeed, some rams are fitted with a flaring collar that determines the quantity of penetration into the target. Still the pressures are such that the ram, even so, is occasionally, dangerously, anchored in the victim. Some captains reduce the ramming speed at the last moment to minimize this form of engagement. It is not necessary for the ram to shatter the opposing vessel to guarantee its destruction. If the enemy ship takes in more water than she can expel the ram has done its work. Shearing blades, incidentally, had been an invention of Tersites, many years ago. They had soon become common on all long ships, even those of Cos and Tyros.
“The ship is too massive for them to be effective,” he said.
I did not doubt that. The usual galley could easily avoid such devices.
“There is no ram, as yet,” I observed.
“One is not needed,” he said.
“I suppose not,” I said. I supposed that any vessel so slow or unwary as to come beneath the bow of this leviathan would be shattered like kindling, crushed like a cache of vulo eggs beneath the tread of a tharlarion. Tersites, incidentally, had recommended that the rams of galleys make their strike above the waterline rather than below it. Some shipwrights had acted on this recommendation and others not. The advantage of having the ram above the waterline is that it increases the speed of the ship, particularly if the ram has a flared collar. If the strike is made at or near the waterline the ram’s effectiveness is little compromised, given the rise and fall of the sea.
“How can the ship defend itself?” I asked.
“Variously,” said Aëtius. “To begin with, it is difficult to attack, given its size. The height of the bulwarks, as in round ships, discourages boarding. Here we have an extreme instance of that. Consider the difficulty of scaling the walls of a city, particularly if the city were at sea. And the timbers, particularly at the bow, and in the vicinity of the waterline, are layered horizontally, and interlaid with sheets of metal, to a depth of five feet. Similarly the ship, when fitted, will be equipped with the usual implements of offense, catapults and such. Too, it will have a crew of a thousand or more.”
“So many?” I said.
“We will have here,” said Aëtius, “a fortress, a floating city, with hundreds of defenders, swordsmen, spearmen, archers, and such, who will have the advantage of height.”
“It will move only under sail, I take it,” I said.
“That is its design,” he said. “It is not a galley.”
“The size, the weight,” I said.
“Of course,” he said.
I saw no thole ports, near the waterline, even for the great oars, with grips, those used on some round ships, five men to an oar.
“And you yourself, as I understand you to be Bosk, of Port Kar,” he said, “have armed the ship most devastatingly.”
“I do not understand,” I said.
“Was it not you, on the 25th of Se’Kara,” he asked, “who first used tarns at sea?”
“It was a gamble,” I said.
“The stones were cast well,” said Aëtius.
“As it turned out,” I said.
The tarn is a land bird and will not fly beyond the sight of land. What I had done was to house tarns below decks until we were far from land. Then, in battle, I had released them with riders, primarily to cast vessels of fire upon the ships of Cos and Tyros. Fortunately for us the tarns responded to their straps as though over land. They may have taken the ships below as land, as islands, so to sp
eak, or, perhaps, it was a mere matter that we had not triggered or engaged the bird’s reluctance to forsake the sight of land. I supposed this disposition had been selected for in the course of the beast’s evolution. Tarns which were disposed to leave the sight of land might have perished in the sea, and thus failed to replicate their genes. Tarns which, for whatever reason, or random gift of genes, were reluctant to leave the sight of land might nest, and reproduce.
“The size of the vessel,” said my informant, “is such as to house tarns, their tarnsmen, their tarnsters, their gear, their provender, and such. They may be exercised regularly at sea, and then return to their vessels. Ports for their entry and exit are built into the hull.”
“It is very different from what I am familiar with,” I said.
“There are here, as well,” said Aëtius, “six common galleys. They might prove of use, and are such as may be housed in the great ship.”
“Within the great ship?” I said.
“Precisely,” said Aëtius.
“Are you sure about the single rudder?” I asked. That there was to be a single rudder was clear not only from the claim of Aëtius, but from the massive socketing, at the stern.
“One is enough,” said Aëtius. “The design is effective.”
“I see,” I said. It did seem to me that in a vessel of this size a double rudder might be impractical, and difficult to mount. Too, in a vessel of this size one would not, in any case, look for a delicate responsiveness to the helm, or helms. This was not a long ship, or a dragon of Torvaldsland.
“In a calm sea,” said Aëtius, “there need be only a single helmsman.”
“I see,” I said. One helmsman, of course, can observe, and communicate with, a second helmsman, some yards across the helmdeck. On the other hand, even a single helmsman would not be likely to be alone. There would presumably be a watch in place.
“Where is Tersites?” I asked.
I remembered having seen him long ago, from the Council of Captains, which, at that time, was subordinate to the Five Ubars, competitive captains in the port. Later the council itself had become sovereign. He had tried to bring several of his proposals, dreams, and ideas, before the council, but they had been deemed too radical, even absurd, and had provoked much derision. This lonely genius, or madman, had become a laughing stock. Certainly he had been badly treated. He had tried later to carry his ideas even to the enemies of Port Kar, Cos and Tyros, but had met with no better success in these island ubarates. He had returned destitute to Port Kar, and had fed off garbage in the canals, and, on a pittance provided for him by the shipwrights, despised and derided, had begun to frequent the taverns of the city. He had then disappeared from Port Kar, and his fate had become unknown, at least to most. It was rumored he was somewhere in the vicinity of the northern forests. I had now begun to suspect that someone, or something, sometime, somewhere, had paused to listen, and carefully, thoughtfully, to the ravings of the demented shipwright, and that that someone, or something, had had plenteous resources at its disposal. Repudiated in Port Kar, mocked in Cos and Tyros, humiliated, outraged, and hating, mad, half-blind Tersites, here on the banks of the Alexandra, was selling the fruits of his genius to a buyer whose identity I doubted he knew. Who cares from what purse the gold to realize dreams may be drawn?