Mariners of Gor (9 page)

“‘Here,
kajira
, here!’ called a mercenary. I fled gratefully to his side. At last I had a man to defend me. I had a champion. I realized then, as I had never before, when I had been sheltered within the arrangements, laws, and customs of a civil order, which I had taken so much for granted, how thin, and possibly transitory, such things were, and what might lie at their elbow, or nigh, on the other side of that lovely curtain, separating comfort and security from the cruelties and hazards of a perilous nature.

“Some think the jungle is faraway, that it is east of Schendi, as distant as the valley of the Ua, but it is not. It is here. It is with us, patient, and waiting. It is as close as the hearts of men.

“‘Stop!’ I heard, and spun about. A fellow, from Ar, I supposed, had called out. He had not been at the perimeter. I doubt that he thought me free. I think, merely, he wanted to pick up a slave. How fearful, I thought, to be a slave, to be an object, a property, a possession, an animal, something which might be bought and sold, or given away, or, as here, something which might be simply gathered in, simply acquired. Put a rope on her neck and she is yours! But I must not be brought back to Ar! As soon as I was stripped, as I would be, as a slave, my lack of a brand would be obvious, and then there would be inquiries, and the proscription lists would be certain to be examined. I must not be returned to Ar!

“‘Begone,’ said the mercenary, stepping between me and the fellow. The fellow looked at the mercenary, in his helmet, with his shield, and a spear whose reddened blade had recently drunk the blood of a foe, and then backed away. In a few moments he had disappeared.”

I said nothing, but I supposed that the mercenary, before approaching the fellow, would have examined the sky behind him. The woman would not have been aware of this, as she would have been facing her pursuer. Occasionally a warrior on foot and a tarnsman collaborate on a kill. The warrior on foot engages the target, and the tarnsman, unseen, glides in, silently, placing a bolt in the adversary’s unprotected back. This act is scorned in the codes, of course, but it is not without precedent in the field. It is common amongst outlaws and rogue tarnsmen.

“‘Should you not have killed him?’ I asked, frightened. ‘I am not a butcher,’ he said.

“‘Continue to protect me,’ I said. ‘Turn about,’ he said, ‘and put your wrists behind you.’ ‘Master?’ I said. ‘You are to be braceleted,’ he said. ‘But then, here, outside the city, in the fields, I would be utterly helpless,’ I said. ‘Such as you, pretty
kajira
,’ he said, ‘are to be utterly helpless.’ I trembled, to think myself so much in the power of men, as much as a
kajira
.”

I smiled.

“I turned and fled away from him, and I discovered, some hundred yards away, gasping, turning about, my feet now raw, that he had not pursued me. Were such as I so common that we were not worth our pursuit? I was elated to be free of him, but frightened, as well, for who would now protect me? And, oddly, my vanity was offended. Surely I was the most beautiful woman he had ever beheld, and yet he did not pursue me, throw me to the ground and fasten my wrists behind me! Standing in the gentle, green, wind-moved grass, alone, looking about, I saw, here and there, in the fields, small groups, moving away from the city. I could see her towers in the distance. Some of these groups had small strings of stripped, neck-roped women with them. Here and there I saw a tarnsman in the sky, almost certainly one of Ar. I saw no pursuits from the city. I did not know where to go or what to do, and I was suddenly aware that I was hungry. I felt the hem of my tunic, reassuring me of the jewels sewn there, and the small key ensconced in its tiny sleeve.”

“You were fortunate to escape Ar,” I said.

“I set out in the direction others were moving,” she said. “I could not go back to Ar. I thought I might reach Torcadino, from whence I might purchase wagon passage to Brundisium, Besnit, Harfax, or Market of Semris. I would avoid Ko-ro-ba and Thentis as they did not favor those of Ar. Too, one would not seek Port Kar, as it is a den of thieves and cutthroats, and Tharna was out of the question. There is only one free woman in Tharna, Lara, her Tatrix. All others are held in the most severe of bondages. No free woman may even enter the gates of Tharna without being temporarily licensed and placed in the custody of a male. Those of Tharna wear in their belt the two yellow cords, each eighteen inches in length, suitable for binding females, hand and foot.”

I knew little of Tharna, but I did know it was a city muchly feared by free women. And yet, interestingly, free women not unoften underwent considerable hardship and peril to enter her gates.

“And I feared, too,” she said, “to seek the major islands, for during the occupation many of the women of Ar had been collected and sent there on slave ships.”

That was true. In my time in Ar I had seen several coffles of the women of Ar leave the city, to be marched overland to Brundisium, there to be disembarked for Cos or Tyros.

“Perhaps Teletus, Tabor, or Chios, of the farther islands,” I suggested.

“I fear the islands,” she said.

“There are pirates,” I said.

“Yes,” she said.

It was not unheard of for women to be seized at sea, to be later disposed of in the markets, sometimes, eventually, as far south as Schendi or Turia.

“Brundisium,” she said, “seemed an optimum choice.”

“Perhaps,” I said.

Brundisium, as many merchant ports, large and small, was in theory neutral. To be sure, it had been the port at which the invasion fleets of Cos and Tyros, unopposed, even welcomed, had made their landfall on the continent, thence to rendezvous with numerous companies of mercenaries, for the march to Ar.

“But I was alone,” she said, “a woman, ill-clad, half crippled, and hungry, unfamiliar with the stars, without guidance, only vaguely aware of where Brundisium might be, or how far away she might be.”

“Presumably you would need assistance,” I said.

“I was well prepared to pay for it,” she said. “Night fell. I hobbled on, in the moonlight. Once I stopped, in terror, frozen, for I noted the sinuous passage of a prairie sleen. It passed within a dozen yards of me, rapidly, its snout to the ground.”

“It was not on your scent,” I said. Sleen can be terribly dangerous to humans, but the human is not its familiar prey. The sleen, in the wild a burrowing, largely nocturnal animal, is a tenacious, obsessive, single-minded hunter, a supreme tracker. On one scent it will often pass by, even ignore, more ample or superior prey.

“When it passed,” she said, “I was overjoyed, for I was still alive, but I was then, almost immediately, sick with fear, for such a beast or beasts, I thought, might even now be following my tracks, from Ar, having been given my scent from my discarded robes.”

Her apprehension was well-warranted. Indeed, it is not unknown for sleen to have discovered and followed tracks which are several days old.

“I walked much of the night,” she said, “keeping to the direction others had taken. The terrain seemed to change, and there were now trees here and there, sometimes groves. Toward morning I could go no further and lay down in the grass, and fell asleep. I awakened late in the afternoon, weak, and starving. I staggered to my feet, and stumbled on. I went almost blindly, putting one foot before the other. As it grew dark I felt a sudden piercing, a fierce, doubled puncturing, in the calf of my right leg and I screamed in pain. I thought ‘ost,’ but it was the twin, hollow thorns of a leech plant which had struck me. I heard the hideous noise of the pulsating pods sucking blood, pumping it to the roots, and, screaming, I tore the fangs from my leg and fled away, and then stopped, afraid to move, lest there be more such things about, lest I stumble and fall into a writhing patch of such plants. Entangled amongst them, they swarming about me, enwrapping me with their vines and tendrils, it was possible I would not have been able to rise to my feet. I could hear them rustling about, on the sides, like whispers. Then, step by step, with great care, I moved away from the stirring, agitated growths, and continued my journey. My throat, too, was parched. I had been raised in luxury and power. I had wanted for nothing. Never had I been hungry and thirsty like this. Even as a child I had had serving slaves. Now I was alone, my beauty briefly and shamefully garbed, my feet bleeding, blood drying on my right calf, weary, without food or water, without protection, with little idea as to where I might be, what I should do, or where I might go.”

I swirled the bit of broth remaining in the metal bowl.

“Then, perhaps near midnight, in the darkness, for clouds obscured the two moons then in the sky, when I thought I could go no further, to my joy, I glimpsed a small light, in the distance. It was, I took it, a small camp. Gratefully, unsteadily, I stumbled toward it. ‘Masters!’ I called out. The light then disappeared. Surely I had more than enough to hire men, to buy protection, a safe conduct, to Brundisium. ‘Masters!’ I called out, again. I stumbled in darkness, lamely, toward the point at which I had seen the point of light. ‘Masters,’ I cried, ‘I am a poor starving slave, separated from her master. He will want me returned to him! I am not a runaway! Please be kind to a poor slave. Please help her!’ Then I thought myself close to the point at which I had seen the bit of light, but it was dark. It had been here somewhere, surely. Then a powerful hand, from behind, closed itself over my mouth, and my head was pulled back, and I felt the razor’s edge of a blade at my throat. ‘Make no sound,
kajira
,’ I heard, a fierce whisper at my ear, ‘and do not struggle.’ I could not speak in any event, my mouth held tightly shut, nor would I have dared to resist, or struggle, with the blade at my throat. One swift motion of that blade and my neck would have been half cut through. I sensed two or more men moving about me and he in whose grasp I was. The hand was then slipped from my mouth to my hair, and my head was then held back by the hair, painfully. I winced. The blade was still at my throat. ‘Where are the others?’ he asked. ‘How many are there?’ ‘I am alone,’ I whispered, scarcely daring to speak. He held me thusly for several Ehn. I scarcely dared to breathe, for fear I might cut my own throat. After a time, seven or eight fellows were about. ‘We found no one,’ said one of them. I almost fainted, as the blade was removed from my throat. ‘On all fours,
kajira
,’ said the fellow who had held me.”

A slave is sometimes put to all fours, that she may move thusly, accompanying masters. In this posture she cannot suddenly run, or dart away. In the situation described the posture was doubtless imposed as a security measure, on an unknown slave, mysteriously arrived from the darkness. In other situations the posture may be imposed upon her as a discipline, to position her for animal usage, to remind her that she is a slave, and so on.

“I resented being on all fours amongst men,” she said, “forced to look up at them from such a position, and such. ‘Come along,
kajira
,’ he said, moving away. I followed him, on all fours. In a few moments the small fire had been rekindled, and I was permitted to kneel, where the firelight played upon me, the men, eleven as I now counted, sitting back from the fire. I could see some small tents, and some paraphernalia of the camp, to my left. I also saw six women, stripped, their hands tied behind them, on a single neck rope, stretched between two stakes, to which each end was fastened. ‘I am the slave Publia,’ I said, ‘separated from my master, Flavius of Brundisium, in the troubles at Ar, seeking to be returned to him.’”

The name Flavius is a common name in the middle latitudes of Gor, at Ar, and elsewhere. I supposed the name had come to her mind, given her name, Flavia, which name, as would be expected, is similarly well known in such areas. It is not unknown, of course, that a slave might strive desperately to be returned to her master. A love unknown to a free woman, in its helplessness, its need, its depth, profundity, beauty, and passion, is often felt by a woman for the man whose collar she wears. Owned, she is his, wholly.

“‘What troubles in Ar?’ asked a fellow. I was sure the question was not candid, but a test of sorts. The catastrophes in Ar had begun some days ago, hundreds of fugitives from Ar had scattered from the city, presumably most to seek the coast, and eventual security in the islands; and the six women in the camp might well have been from Ar, perhaps proscribed women, begging passage from Ar, even at the cost of the collar. Indeed these fellows in the camp, I supposed, might well have been amongst those who fled from Ar. Who would not know, truly, of the miseries and changes in Ar? But I responded, innocently, as though granting that the question had been asked, as well, in all innocence. ‘The uprising,’ I said, ‘the rebellion, the ending of the occupation, the expulsion of foreign troops from Ar.’ ‘Who is this Flavius?’ asked another. ‘A minor Merchant of Brundisium,’ I said. I did not wish to claim status for him, as some about the fire might be familiar with the merchantry of the great port.’ I knelt with my knees together. Also, it occurred to me that I had not requested permission to speak. Perhaps, I thought, they are permissive with slaves here. But I glanced at the stripped, bound women beyond the firelight and that did not then seem to me likely. ‘May I inquire,’ I asked, ‘what Home Stone Masters revere?’ This could, of course, make a great deal of difference in what might then ensue. They looked at one another, and more than one laughed. Although this made me somewhat uneasy, it also reassured me that I was not amongst those who favored either Ar or the island Ubarates. If they were of Ar I might fear being returned to the city with the likelihood of impalement. If they were of the island Ubarates, they would have come, over the time of the occupation and the looting of the city, to think of the women of Ar as suitable only for slaves. ‘It seems,’ I said, ‘that you are independent of fee, and thus open to prospects of considerable gain.’ ‘Certainly,’ said he whom I took to be their leader, he whose knife had been at my throat. ‘We may speak freely then,’ I said, ‘but first, as I have been in the wild for two days, and am weak from hunger, and am exhausted and thirsty, I need food, and drink, bolstering ka-la-na, and rest.’ ‘Of course,’ said the leader, kindly. He nodded to one of his men. He went to the rope of women and put she on the rope nearest to the stake to my right in rope shackles. She would barely be able to stand and move. He then loosened the neck rope from the stake to my right and freed her of its collar-like restraint, after which he refastened it to the stake. He then unbound her hands. She rubbed her wrists, regarding me. The fellow then pointed to me, and said, ‘Feed and water her.’ I did not care for this way of putting it, as it sounded as though I might be an animal. But I was thirsting and starving. ‘Why should I, who was a free woman, wait on a common slave?’ demanded the woman. Her hair was then held and she was cuffed brutally, four times. She then, weeping, scarcely able to move for the closely tied rope shackles, hobbled about, to find me food and drink. I took the provender and drink, including ka-la-na, which I doubt she was permitted, from her with the hauteur and disdain of a free woman for the garbages that are slaves. Afterwards I fainted, or fell asleep.