Rebels of Gor (77 page)

“Nodachi will not go with us,” said Tajima.

“He must,” I said.

“He will not,” said Tajima.

“Why not?” I asked.

“He wishes to kill Lord Yamada,” said Tajima.

“That plan failed,” I said.

“One does not need a plan,” said Tajima. “One needs only a sword and Lord Yamada.”

“Lord Yamada may not even be in the palace,” I said.

“Nor Nodachi, now,” said Pertinax.

“I think the corridor is empty,” said Pertinax, peering into the gloom.

“Let us search for Nodachi, and Haruki,” I said. “They are not likely to be on the fifth level.”

We spoke softly.

But I had the sense that if we were to shout, our voices would have rung in the corridor.

We moved softly, but, still, it seemed we could hear our footsteps.

It seemed a hollow sound.

The small lamp, behind us, as we passed it, went out.

Pertinax spun about, glaive lowered.

“Steady, friend,” I said. “Its fuel was exhausted.”

“Why was its fuel low?” asked Tajima.

“I do not know,” I said.

“It should have been tended,” said Tajima.

“Yes,” I said. “But it seems it was not.”

“Why?” asked Tajima.

“I do not know,” I said. “It would be gratifying to encounter an informant. The stairs are at the end of the corridor.”

* * *

“Hold!” I cried.

We had descended to the second level of the palace, and had encountered no one, until this moment.

She had turned about, several yards before us, and faced us, momentarily, seemed for a moment glad, even overjoyed, and then her expression turned to fear, and she turned and ran.

“Would that I had a bola,” I said.

“It is a female, she would be simple enough to pursue,” said Pertinax.

I thrust out my arm, abruptly, and halted him, in midstride.

“No!” I said. “Do not pursue her.”

“As you wish,” said Pertinax, puzzled. “Might she not constitute our needed informant?”

“Perhaps, perhaps not,” I said. “In pursuing her you would pass opened chambers, which might not, as the others, be empty. You might rush about a blind corner, to encounter glaives or bows. She may be a decoy girl, a lure girl.”

“I do not think so,” said Pertinax.

“Nor I,” I said, “but I do not choose to risk your life on the matter.”

“She seems no slave,” said Tajima.

“She is briefly and ill-clad,” said Pertinax.

“But not slave-clad,” said Tajima. “She wears no tunic.”

“Barefoot, and little but a rag clutched about her,” said Pertinax.

“But no tunic, or no remnant of a tunic,” said Tajima.

There are various garments which slaves, when permitted clothing, must wear. Usually they are brief and revealing, little more than mockeries of a garmenture, garments appropriate for their debased condition, that of property girls, that of owned objects. But in all their variations, which may be manifold, such garmentures clearly identify their occupant as a slave. It would not do, at all, to confuse one with a free woman. Indeed, on the continent, it can be a capital offense for a slave to don the garments of a free woman. The free woman would not stand for it, and free men would not permit it. They enjoy seeing slaves clad as slaves. As the slaves are owned, why should men not have them clad as they wish, clad for the pleasure and delectation of men? And the slave, once she understands that she is truly a slave, even to the mark and collar, delights in such things, delights in her display, delights in her frank, honest, shameless exhibition and brazen exposure, that in which she has no choice and to which she dare not object, even should she wish to do so. How else could a woman be more herself, more radically female, than as slave? The hatred borne by free women to helpless slaves is legendary. What was of interest was that the woman, of whom we had caught a brief glimpse in the corridor, though barefoot and half naked, was not tunicked, or comparably clad, as a slave. She clutched about her, in her flight, no more than a simple cloth, which might have been derived from any number of possible origins, even from the shreds of more refined habiliments.

“I think that is a free woman,” said Tajima.

“Too ill-clothed,” said Pertinax.

“Even so,” said Tajima.

“Free or slave,” I said, “she may be a lure girl.”

“I do not think so,” said Tajima.

“Let us not wager our lives on the matter,” I said.

“In any event,” said Pertinax, “she is gone now.”

* * *

“Slaves were shackled in the basement,” I said. “If there is slave housing there, shackle rings or pens, there may be cells, as well.”

“The palace is deserted,” said Pertinax.

“It seems so,” I said. There was debris here and there in the halls, unthinkable in a Pani dwelling, even discarded scrolls, some torn, and some blackened with soot, as though partly burned.

Tajima lifted up a charred painting, on a wooden panel, of a delicate forest scene, with a pond, and cranes. “This is barbarism,” he said.

“Hatred,” I said, “is often blind.”

“I do not understand the desertion of the palace,” said Pertinax.

“It may not be deserted,” I said. “Here are stairs. Have your weapons ready.”

* * *

“Yes,” said Tajima. “These are holding areas.”

“But they are empty,” I said.

We had passed walls, with inserted slave rings, and by each ring a mat, and blanket.

In some cases there was a half-eaten bowl of rice near a mat.

“The slaves are gone,” had said Tajima.

“They have been freed,” said Pertinax.

“Do not be foolish, friend,” I said. “Either they have been moved, as one might herd a flock of verr to a new location, or they have been stolen.”

“‘Stolen’?” said Pertinax.

“Of course,” I said, “they are properties, slaves.”

“I see,” said Pertinax.

“It would be only a change of collars, and masters, for them,” I said.

“Excellent,” said Pertinax.

On the continent there is a familiar saying, that only a fool frees a slave girl. Indeed, in the frequent wars amongst cities, in the waxings and wanings of victories, in the advancing and receding tides of conflict, it is not unusual that a woman captured from one city and routinely enslaved may on another day, in the fortunes of raiding and war, fall into the hands of men of her original city. She is not then liberated. That would be unthinkable. One can see the mark on her thigh, and note the collar on her neck. She has been spoiled for freedom. She will be kept as a slave, for that is what she now is. Normally, she will be sold out of her original city, unless perhaps someone, say, a formerly spurned suitor, wishes to buy her.

“The pens, and cages, and slave boxes, were empty, too,” said Tajima.

“And the cells, as well,” said Pertinax. “Their doors are all ajar.”

“I see one,” I said, “which is not.”

Tajima and Pertinax hurried to the closed door.

“Slide back the panel first,” I warned them.

I did not wish them to fling open a door behind which might wait a drawn bow, a raised knife.

“Ah!” cried Tajima.

Tajima and Pertinax slipped back the four bolts. The door was then swung back.

Tajima and Pertinax then bowed. “Master,” they said, heads lowered.

Nodachi rose to his feet, stiffly, and returned their bow.

“Does Lord Yamada yet live?” he asked.

“I do not know, Master,” said Tajima.

“We must learn,” said Nodachi.

I looked into the cell. There was some water left in the shallow cistern to the right, little more than a puddle on the floor. I saw no food.

“Most cells are empty,” I said.

“Prisoners were freed,” said Nodachi.

“But you were not,” I said.

“I declined,” said Nodachi. “I did not regard it meet to be freed by such as they.”

I found it difficult to understand the sensibility involved, but proprieties are often subtle and elusive. Perhaps one was to be fastidious with respect to favors received. Some debts are perhaps best not incurred.

“Who are ‘they’, noble one?” I inquired.

“Peasants,” he said.

“In the palace?” said Tajima.

“Storming, and rampaging about,” said Nodachi. “I fear there was much discourtesy, perhaps even theft and vandalism.”

“I fear there was, Master,” said Tajima.

“Where were the soldiers, the officers, and Ashigaru?” asked Pertinax.

“I do not know,” said Nodachi.

“I am sure they will return,” I said.

“Wild may be the peasants,” said Tajima, “but they did not burn the palace.”

“The palace is the seat of the shogun,” said Nodachi. “They feared to do so.”

“Perhaps you are hungry,” I said.

“One meditates,” said Nodachi, “but the stomach is an unwilling partner.”

“I saw rice outside, some rice, Master,” said Tajima, “by the slave rings.”

This was true, and it suggested that the slaves had been moved precipitously, or, as the case might have been, seized and carried away precipitately.

“Perhaps you will bring me a little,” said Nodachi.

“But it is the rice of slaves, Master,” said Tajima.

“We will not tell the stomach,” said Nodachi.

“Yes, Master,” said Tajima.

“Even amongst the higher orders,” said Nodachi, “it is said that some eat the rice of slaves.”

Tajima hurried from the cell, to fetch rice.

“Tajima, Pertinax, and I have been detained, so to speak, for several days,” I said. “We know little of what has occurred.”

“
Ela
, my friend,” said Nodachi, smiling, looking about, “I, too, have been detained.”

Tajima returned shortly with two heaping bowls of rice, presumably the result of pooling the meager contents left behind in several of the small slave bowls we had noted earlier.

Nodachi first offered us the rice, but we politely refused.

I thought, he must be starving.

Nodachi then sat down, cross-legged, and, using his fingers, fed.

He did this calmly, and without haste, in a seemly manner.

“We shall leave the door open,” I said, “and you may exit, or not, as you wish.”

Nodachi, not rising, inclined his head, politely.

“We hope to venture north,” I said. “It is our hope that you will accompany us.”

“That is wise,” said Nodachi. “Do not delay on my account.”

“Come with us,” I said.

“I have an audience with Lord Yamada,” said Nodachi.

“Is he aware of this audience?” I asked.

“It is my hope that he suspects,” said Nodachi. “I would prefer that.”

“The palace is deserted,” I said.

“That is unlikely,” he said.

“The peasants have gone,” I said.

“They fear the return of troops,” said Nodachi.

“Troops may not be returning,” I said.

“What does not exist may still be feared,” he said.

“Lord Yamada,” I said, “may not be in the palace.”

“It is the seat of the shogun,” said Nodachi.

“I think we will delay our departure,” I said.

“Do not do so on my account,” he said.

“We will do so on our account,” I said.

“Is that wise?” he said.

“One is not always wise,” I said.

Nodachi set aside the last of the two bowls from which he had fed, and rose to his feet, smiled, and bowed graciously.

“We shall require weapons,” he said, “something more suitable than glaives and
tantos
.”

“Perhaps there is an arsenal,” said Tajima.

“Peasants will have taken everything of value,” said Pertinax.

“Only what they can find,” said Nodachi. “Only what they did not fear to touch.”

“I do not understand,” I said.

“There will be a trophy room,” said Nodachi.

Chapter Fifty-Six

We Obtain an Informant

“Oh!” she cried, seized.

I turned her about, and saw that she was comely.

I thought this a natural place to find her, or another. Surely our seemingly frightened wraith in the corridor, she who had fled from us, seemingly so distraught, earlier on the second level of the palace, might still be in the palace. If she was a free woman, as we speculated, she might in such times fear to leave the building. In a time of peril even its hazards might seem preferable to those of the outer grounds or the open country, which might be roamed by raiding peasants, by bandits, by renegades, by hungry, desperate soldiers, like animals, freed of the rod of discipline. It was the kitchen of an Ashigaru guard station within the palace itself. Might there not be scraps of food in such a place, even scrapings from the sides of garbage bins? Might not such locations then be frequented by such an individual, or individuals, trying to survive like urts in the collapse of a society or civilization? I had located it and other such facilities in my peregrinations about the palace before my escape with Haruki, after the incident of the eel pool and the straw jackets. I had set Pertinax and Tajima separately on their way about the palace, searching for weapons. I did not know where Nodachi might be, but I suspected he was searching for a trophy room, wherever it might be, whatever it might be. I had seized her from behind, and then turned her about.