Marauders of Gor (52 page)

           
"Ivar!" called Svein Blue Tooth, when the loot was distributed, pointing to Hilda, who, in her collar, stripped cuddled at the Forkbeard's side, "are you not, too, going
 
to give away that pretty little trinket?"

           
"No!" laughed the Forkbeard. "This pretty little trink this pretty little bauble, I keep for
 
myself!" He then took Hilda in his arms and, holding her across his body, kissed her. She melted to him, in the fantastic, total yielding of the slave girl.

           
"Guests!" shouted a man. "Guests to enter the hall Svein Blue Tooth!"

           
We looked to where once had stood the mighty portals the hall of Svein Blue Tooth.

           
"Bid them welcome," said the Blue Tooth, and he himself left the table, taking a bowl of water and towel to meet the guests at the portal. "Refresh yourselves," said he to them, "and enter."

           
Two men, with followers, acknowledged the greeting Svein Blue Tooth; they washed their hands, and their
 
faces and they came foward. I stood.

           
"We have sought you," said Samos of Port Kar. "I
  
had feared we might be too late."

           
I did not speak

           
He turned to regard the huge, shaggy head of the Kur
 
mounted on its stake.

           
"What is this?" he asked.

           
"Grendel," I said to him.

           
"I do not understand," he said.

           
"It is a joke," I said. Beside me, naked, in her collar,
 
Leah shrank back, her hand before her mouth. I look at her. "Yes," I said. She had been of Earth, a free girl until brought as a slave to Gor. She understood my meaning. New understanding, new recognition, figured in her eyes. The wars of Priest-Kings and Others, the Kurii, were of an cient standing. I did not know, nor I suppose did others, outside the Nest, when the first contacts had been made, the first probes initiated, the first awareness registered on the part of Priest-Kings that there were visitors within their system, strangers at the gates, intruders, dangerous and unwelcome, threatening, bent upon the acquisition of territories, planetary countries. It seemed to me not unlikely that the Grendel of legend had been a Kur, a survivor perhaps of a forced landing or a decimated scouting party. Perhaps, even, as a punishment, perhaps for impermissible murder or for violation of ship's discipline, he had been put to shore, marooned.

           
"How is it that you have sought me?" I asked.

           
"The poison," said he, "that which lay upon the blades of the men of Sarus of Tyros, lurks yet in your body."

           
"There is no antidote," I told him. "This I had from Iskander of Turia, who knew the toxin."

           
"Warrior," said the man who stood with Samos, "I bring the antidote."

           
"You are Sarus of Tyros," I said. "You sought my capture, my life. We have fought as foes in the forests."

           
"Speak," said Samos to Sarus.

           
Sarus regarded me. He was a lean man, hard, scarred, with clear eyes. He was not of high family in Tyros, but had risen through the ranks to captainship in Tyros. His accent was not of high caste; it had been formed on the jetties of the island Ubarate of cliffed Tyros, where he had for years, I had learned, led gangs of ruffians; caught, he had been dragged before Chenbar, the Sea Sleen, for sentencing to impalement; rather, Chenbar had liked the looks of him and had had him taught the sword; swiftly, given his skills and intelligence, had the young, rugged brigand risen in the service of the Ubar; they were as brothers; there was; I was sure, no man in Tyros more loyal to her Ubar than Sarus. It was to him, as soon as Chenbar, freed of the dungeon of Port Kar, to which I had seen him consigned, had returned to Tyros, that the task had been given to hunt and capture the Ubar of Ar, Marlenus, and an Admiral of Port Kar, Bosk. Of these matters I have elsewhere written.

           
"The weapons of my men and myself, unknown to us, before we left Tyros," said he, "were treated with a toxin of the compounding of Sullius Maximus, once a Ubar of Port Kar." Sullius Maximus had been one of the five Ubars of Port Kar, whose reigns, dividing the city, had been terminated when the Council of Captains, under the leadership of Samos, First Captain of Port Kar, had assumed the sovereignty. The others had been Chung, Nigel, Eteocles, and Henrius Sevarius, the last of which, however, had ruled in name only, the true power being controlled by his uncle, Claudius, acting in the role of regent. Eteocles had fled; I had known him last to be in terraced Cos, an advisor to her Ubar, gross Lurius, of the Cosian city of Jad. Nigel and Chung were in Port Kar, though now only as powerful captains, high in her council. They had fought against the united fleets of Tyros and Cos and, without their help, doubtless Port Kar could not have won the great victory of the 25th of Se'Kara, in the first year of the reign of the Council of Captains, in the year 10,120 Contasta Ar, from the Founding of Ar. Claudius, who had been regent for Henrius Sevarius, and had slain his father, and sought the life of the boy, had been slain by a young seaman, a former slave, named Fish, in my house. The whereabouts of Henrius Sevarius, on whose head a price had been set, were unknown to the Council of Captains. The boy named Fish, incidentally, was still in my service, in Port Kar. He now called himself Henrius. Sullius Maximus, most cultured ofthe former Ubars of Port Kar, a chemist and poet, and poisoner, had sought refuge in Tyros; it had been granted him. "I swear to you that this is so," said Sarus. "We of Tyros are warriors and we do not deal in poisons. Upon my return to Tyros, Sullius inquired if our foes had been wounded, and I informed him that indeed we had struck you, drawing blood. His laughter, as if demented, he turning away, alarmed me. I forced the truth from him. I was in agony. It was to you that my men and myself, those who survived, owed their lives. Marlenus would have carried us to Ar for mutilation and public impalement. You were magnanimous, honoring us as warriors and sword brothers. I demanded an antidote. Laughing, Sullius Maximus, adjusting his cloak, informed me that there was none. I determined to slay him, and then take ship to Port Kar, that you might then, if you chose, cut my throat with your own hands. When my blade lay at the heart of the poisoner Chenbar, my Ubar, aroused by his weeping, bade me desists. Swiftly did I inform my Ubar of the shame that Sullius Maximus had wrought upon the Ubarate. 'I have ridded you of an enemy!" cried Sullius. 'Be grateful! Reward me!"Poison,' said Chenbar, 'is the weapon of women, not warriors. You have dishonored me!' 'Let me live!' cried the poisoner. 'Do you, Sarus, retain the poisoned steel?' inquired my Ubar. 'Yes, my Ubar,' replied I. 'In ten days, wretched Sullius,' decreed my Ubar, 'your flesh will be cut with the steel of Sarus. On the tenth day, if you would again move your body of your own will, it would be well for you to have devised an antidote.' Sullius Maximus, then, shaken, white-faced, tottering, was hurried by guards to his chambers, his vials and chemicals." Sarus smiled. He removed a vial from his pouch. It contained a purplish fluid.

           
"Has it been tested?" asked Samos.

           
"On the body of Sullius Maximus," said Sarus. "On the tenth day, on his arms and legs, and twice, transversely, across his right cheekbone, that his face be scarred and his shame known, I drew the poisoned blade, drawing blood with each stroke."

           
I smiled. Sullius Maximus was a handsome man, extremely vain, even foppish. He would not appreciate the alteration of his physiognomy, wrought by the blade of Sarus.

           
"Within seconds," said Sarus, "the spiteful fluid took its effect. The eyes of Sullius were wild with fear. 'The antidote! The antidote!' he begged. We sat him in a curule chair, vested as a Ubar, and left him. We wished the poison to work, to be truly fixed within his system. The next day, when the bar of noon was struck on the wharves, we administered to him the antidote. It was effective. He is now again in the court of Chenbar, much chastened, but serving again as laureate and advisor. He is not much pleased, incidentally, with the scarring of his countenance. Much amusement on account of it is taken at his expense by his fellows of the court. He holds little affection for you, or for me, Bosk of Port Kar."

           
 
"He called you 'Bosk of Port Kar, " said Ivar Forkbeard, standing near me.

           
I smiled. "It is a name I am sometimes known by," I said.

           
Sarus proffered to me the vial.

           
I took it. "There is, I discover, attendant upon its assimilation," said Sarus of Tyros, "delirium and fever, but, in the end, the body finds itself freed of both poison and antidote. I give it to you, Bosk of Port Kar, and with it the apologies of my Ubar, Chenbar, and those of myself, a seaman in his service."

           
"I am surprised," I said, "that Chenbar, the Sea Sleen, is so solicitous of my welfare."

           
Sarus laughed. "He is not solicitous of your welfare, Warrior. He is solicitous, rather, of the honor of Tyros. Little would please Chenbar more than to meet you with daggers on the fighting circle of Tyros. He owes you much, a defeat, and chains and a dungeon, and he has a long memory, my Ubar. No, he is not solicitous of your welfare. If anything, he wants you well and strong, that he may meet you, evenly, with cold steel."

           
"And you, Sarus?" I inquired.

           
"I," said Sarus, simply, "am solicitous of your welfare, Bosk of Port Kar. You gave, on the coast of Thassa, freedom, and life, to me and my men. I shall not, ever, forget this."

           
"You were a good leader," I said, "to bring your men, some wounded, from high on Thassa's coast to Tyros."

           
Sarus looked down.

           
"There is place in my house in Port Kar " I said, "for one such as you, if you wish to serve me."

           
"My place," said Sarus, "is in Tyros." Then he said, "Drink, Bosk of Port Kar, and restore the honor of Chenbar, and the honor of Sarus, and of Tyros."

           
I removed the stopper from the vial.

           
"It may itself be poison," said Samos.

           
I smelled it. It smelled sweet, not unlike a syrup of Turia. "Yes," I said, "it may be." It was true what Samos had said. It could be, indeed, that I held in my hand not an antidote, but a lethal dose of some unknown toxin. I thought of Turia, of its baths and wines. The plan of Tyros might thus, foiled upon the coast of Thassa, be in ef~ect accomplished in the hall of Svein Blue Tooth, at least with respect to him known as Bosk of Port Kar.

           
"Do not drink it," said the Forkbeard to me.

           
But I had felt, after the battle, again in my body the effects of the poison, though briefly. I had ~ittie doubt but that it still linger~d in my body. I had little doubt but that, in time, it would again force me to the blankets and chair of a recluse in a hall in Port Kar. If not countered, it would, eventually, doubtless, have its way.

           
"I shall drink it," I told Ivar Forkbeard.

           
The Forkbeard looked upon Sarus of Tyros. "If he dies," he said, "your death will be neither swift nor pleasant."

           
"I am your hostage," said Sarus.

           
"You, you called Sarus of Tyros," said Ivar, "you drink first."

           
"There is not enough," said Sarus of Tyros.

           
"Chain him," said the Forkbeard. Chains were brought.

           
"Sarus of Tyros," I said to Ivar, "is a guest in the hall of Svein Blue Tooth.'

           
The chains were not placed on Sarus.

           
I lifted the vial to Sarus of Tyros. "I drink," I said, "I drink to the honor of Tyros."

           
Then I downed the contents of the vial.

           
Chapter 22
     
  
I take ship from the north

           
Slave girls, naked, carrying burdens, loaded the ship of Ivar Forkbeard, the Hilda, moored at the wharf of the Thing Fields. We stood on the wooden boards of the wharf.

           
"Will you not return to Port Kar with Sarus and myself?" asked Samos.

           
"I think," said I, smiling, "I will take ship south with Ivar Forkbeard, for I have yet to learn to break the Jarl's Ax's gambit. '

           
"Perhaps," said Samos, "when you reach Port Kar, we may talk of weighty matters."