Rebels of Gor (80 page)

“I, for one,” said Pertinax, “am tired of the raw meat from the chamber of the Kurii.”

“It would be nice to have it roasted, or boiled,” I said.

“There is probably some rice left in the basement holding areas,” said Tajima.

“It will be pleasant,” I said, “to have, after such a long time, a good meal.”

“Very much so,” said Pertinax.

“A kitchen is not far away,” I said. Indeed, it was in a kitchen that I had apprehended the fugitive, the hiding Lady Kameko.

“Now,” said Pertinax, “we need only a cook.”

“Oh!” wept the Lady Kameko, recoiling from the blow of a sandal.

“There is our cook,” said Tajima, stepping back.

“I know nothing of cooking,” she whispered, frightened.

“You will do well,” said Tajima, “or you will be beaten.”

“If you do well,” I said, “and you beg prettily enough, earnestly enough, we may allow you to eat, too, after us, say, a handful of rice, a shred of meat.”

She moaned.

“After supper,” I said, “and after you have cleaned up the pans, the pots, and utensils, and have prepared some sort of bedding for us, if possible, we shall retire, and rise early, in the morning.”

“We must find Nodachi,” said Tajima.

“He was searching for a trophy room,” said Pertinax.

“I expect he has found it by now, although we have not done so,” I said.

“Perhaps not,” said Tajima. “The palace is large, rooms are numerous, and some may be secret.”

“We will have an advantage,” I said. “We will have a guide.”

“I do not know the location of a trophy room!” said Lady Kameko.

“In the morning,” I said, “freed of your shackles, but leashed and bound, you will guide us to it.”

“I know of no such room!” she said.

“Surely you have heard of it,” I said.

“Of course,” she said, “but I have never been there. I do not know where it is.”

“Then you are not one of the women,” said Tajima, “who attend to such trophies, who care for them.”

“No,” she said.

“Why should trophies need tending, or caring for?” asked Pertinax. “What sort of tending and caring?”

“The women will have fled the palace by now,” said Tajima. “The room will be deserted.”

“Perhaps the peasants have found it, and despoiled it,” said Pertinax.

“They could take,” I said, recalling the words of Nodachi, “only what they could find.”

“That suggests a secret room,” said Pertinax.

“And only,” I said, again recalling the words of Nodachi, in this case a cryptic allusion, “what they did not fear to touch.”

“Why should they fear to touch trophies?” asked Pertinax.

“Much, my friend,” said Tajima, “depends on the nature of the trophies.”

“Nodachi,” I said, “seeks weapons.”

“It is not unlikely,” said Tajima, “that among certain trophies might be found weapons.”

“What is the nature of these trophies?” said Pertinax.

“If we are successful in finding the room,” said Tajima, “you will see.”

“They are hunting trophies?” said Pertinax.

“How does one attain, and maintain, the shogunate?” asked Tajima. “How is order established, and kept?”

“By force, by war, by terror?” said Pertinax.

“And what sort of trophies might a daimyo or shogun, if he were so inclined, garner in such pursuits?” asked Tajima.

“I see,” said Pertinax.

Chapter Fifty-Eight

We Will Arm Ourselves

“I think,” said Nodachi, a field sword across his legs, as he sat cross-legged in the trophy room, “Lord Yamada is in the palace.”

“Surely not,” I said. “His troops have moved south.”

“Fled south,” said Nodachi.

“You have scouted the grounds?” I said.

“Yes,” he said. “The signs are clear. No stand was made. There are no entrenchments. The road is not blocked. Even now, stragglers pass the grounds.”

“Master,” said Tajima, “surely the legendary discipline of picked troops is sustained.”

“Doubtless,” said Nodachi, “here and there, under prize officers, but not enough to hold back Lord Temmu, should he choose to march.”

I did not know if he would commit troops to the south, and, if so, in what numbers.

“Surely, Master,” said Pertinax, “Yamada—.”

“Lord Yamada,” suggested Nodachi.

“Yes, Master,” said Pertinax. “Forgive me. Surely Lord Yamada will have withdrawn south, perhaps to rally his men.”

“I do not think so,” said Nodachi. “The iron dragon has flown.”

“Why,” I asked, “do you think Lord Yamada is in the palace?”

“He is shogun,” said Nodachi.

“All is lost for him,” said Tajima. “He has by now donned pure garments, and had recourse to the ritual knife.”

“I do not think so,” said Nodachi. “It is his way to put others to the knife.”

“We followed your signs,” I said.

“I did not think it an accident that you are here,” said Nodachi.

It was now two days later, following our apprehension of the Lady Kameko. We had searched in vain for the trophy room, until Tajima, this morning, on the fourth level, had seen the tiny image of a sword scratched on a tile. “Nodachi!” he had said, pleased. “Yes!” had said Pertinax, similarly pleased.

It was scarcely noticeable, such a tiny mark.

I had been concerned to investigate room after room, in a methodical fashion. We had encountered no one in the corridors or the rooms, but, now and then, we had come upon the suggestion that others might be in the palace, presumably other fugitives, as the Lady Kameko.

“‘By means of small things one sometimes sees large things’,” had said Tajima, with satisfaction.

“You were looking for small things?” I said.

“One is to look for many things, both small things and large things,” said Tajima.

“Nodachi?” I had asked.

“Of course,” had said Pertinax.

We had then searched diligently for these tiny scratches, which, if Tajima and Pertinax were right, had been left for us.

The evening of our apprehension of Lady Kameko she was kind enough to cook for us, and attend to a number of other small conveniences and pleasantries on our behalf. It had been necessary only to strike her twice across the back of the thighs with a switch, found in the kitchen, useful for encouraging scullery slaves, serving slaves, and such. Tajima attended to the matter. She was, after all, a high lady, of the hated house of Yamada. We allowed her to feed after our supper, for which privilege we deemed she had begged prettily enough, and earnestly enough. She would feed on all fours, head down, from a pan, not permitted to use her hands. We felt this was appropriate, given the sort of captive she was, a free woman of the house of Yamada. As a free woman she may have felt this intensely humiliating. As a slave she would be grateful to be fed. Most slaves, of course, eat with the master, though he will take the first bite, and they are permitted to use their hands to feed themselves. In such a situation the master commonly sits, either cross-legged, or on a bench or chair, while the slave kneels. She may, too, be fed occasionally by hand, in which case, naturally, she takes the food in her mouth, and may not otherwise touch it. There are hundreds of small details by means of which a slave is trained, and levels to which she may aspire, earned by diligence and pleasingness, for example, as suggested, eating with the master and using her own hands to feed herself. None of us put the Lady Kameko to use, this despite her rude handling by peasants. She was, after all, a free woman. I suppose it is easy to be mistaken about such things, but I think the Lady Kameko had mixed feeling in this matter. Was she not attractive? Too, it seemed possible that the attentions to which she had been subjected by aroused admirers, ravaging peasants, might have shaken her in her sexual sleep, and hinted at what it might be to be sexually awake. Certainly when we were tethering her for the night, and such, certain small movements, and attitudes, her wide, expectant, frightened eyes, and tiny noises, seemed to say, “Here I am. I am helpless. I am yours to do with as you please. I cannot stop you. I am yours. What are you going to do with me?” “Slut!” had said Tajima, and kicked her contemptuously, and she shrank back in her bonds. “They are all slaves,” said Pertinax. “Happily,” I said. So, I thought, that high lady, so superior, distant, and frosty, must now begin to cope with a possibly dismaying realization, that she has the belly of a slave. In the morning, following some residue of the previous evening’s meal, sumptuous compared to the miserable fare of the chamber of the Kurii, we had begun our search, the object of which was to rejoin Nodachi and locate the trophy room in which, we hoped, might be found weapons. The first day, we put the Lady Kameko, on her leash, her hands bound behind her, to the fore, as we supposed that she, despite her denials, must know the location of the trophy room. “To the trophy room,” ordered Tajima, with a flourish of his switch. She threw herself to her knees before him, her head down to his feet, trembling. “I do not know where it is, noble one!” she wept. As she, after enduring some threats, some shovings, some pushings, some kicks, and more than one blow of the kitchen switch, collapsed weeping on the tiles, Tajima, switch in hand, turned about, and regarded us, annoyed. “She may not know where it is,” said Pertinax. “I think Pertinax may be right,” I said. “There is no serious reason, in a muchly deserted palace, in a dangerous, lawless time, why she might not lead us to the trophy room, if she knew its location. What would she have to lose? Dalliance on her part would be inadvisable, perhaps painful. Presumably she would lead us to it quickly enough, if she could.” “Consider, too,” said Pertinax, “the location of the room may not be generally known. Indeed, it might be a concealed, secret room, as that in the chamber of the Kurii.” “True,” said Tajima, thrusting the switch in his sash. “Get up,” he ordered the Lady Kameko. “Keep your head down.” “Yes, noble one,” she said. “Loop the leash about her neck,” I said. That was done. “Lady Kameko,” I said, “we now have had about as much good out of you as we are likely to have. You are not a slave, and free women are not worth that much. You may go.” “‘Go’?” she said. “Yes,” I said. “Where?” she asked. “Wherever you wish,” I said. “You are a free woman.” “I do not understand,” she said. “Flee,” I said. “Where,” she said, “to what? I am half naked and helplessly bound. I would be at the mercy of anyone, a peasant, a soldier, a beast. I might starve.” “True,” I said, “but your fate would be that of a noble free woman.”

“Of the hated house of Yamada,” said Tajima.

“Let us be on our way,” I said to Pertinax and Tajima, and we turned away from the distraught Lady Kameko.

We had proceeded but a few steps, and we heard her plaintive cry from behind, and the pattering of her bare feet on the tiles.

“Take me with you!” she begged.

“There is no place here for free women,” said Tajima.

“Do not hate me so!” she wept.

“You are of the house of Yamada,” he said.

“Mercy!” she wept.

“We must continue our search,” I said.

“I am a helpless woman!” she cried.

“Of the house of Yamada,” Tajima reminded her.

“I am a female!” she wept. “I am smaller than you! I am weaker than you! I am different from you, so different! And I need food! And I need shelter, and protection! I am at your mercy! Please, please!”

“We must be on our way,” I said.

She hurried to stand before Pertinax.

I found that of interest.

“Please!” she begged.

“No,” he said.

“I am a female,” she said. “I am young! I am beautiful!”

“A kettle-and-mat girl,” said Tajima.

“Many have sought my hand,” she said, “and I have refused them all!”

“A pot girl,” scoffed Tajima.

I supposed then that she must have been rich, and of independent means, prior to the ruination of the house of Yamada, for the matings of high Pani females are generally arranged and supervised as closely as those of slaves.

“Regard me,” said Lady Kameko to Pertinax. “Am I not of interest?”

“Perhaps to tarsks, to peasants,” said Tajima.

“Please, noble barbarian?” she said, to Pertinax.

There was no mistaking the zealousness of her appeal.

Why, I wondered, would she apply so fervently to Pertinax?

I supposed him a handsome enough fellow. Certainly he was cleanly cut, tall, sinewy, and such. Perhaps she thought him weak. If so, she would find that she was mistaken. He was no longer the pathetic, diffident Gregory White who had crept about in the officious shadow of Miss Margaret Wentworth, now the slave, Saru, tentative and pliant, hoping to please. He was now Gorean. He had learned war, and the uses to which women may be put.

“Please!” she said.

Clearly her situation was desperate.