Swordsmen of Gor (13 page)

She then stood very still.

“Yes,” I said. “Women such as you strain the codes.”

“I am free,” she said. “Free!”

“Yes,” I said, “you are a free woman, but one of Earth. You do not have the status of a Gorean free woman. Compared to a Gorean free woman, sheltered by her Home Stone, secure within her walls, complacent in the unquestioned arrogance of her station, the women of Earth do not even understand what it is to be free. The Gorean free woman is glorious in her freedom. The free women of Earth are no more than the sort of women that Gorean slavers think nothing of enslaving. They see the women of Earth not as free women, but only as slaves who have not yet been put in their collars.”

“I am a woman of Earth!” she said.

“Precisely,” I said.

“Monster!” she said.

“But it is true,” I said, “that you are a free woman of Earth, at least as far as those women can be free, and thus that my codes, though the matter is controversial, much depending on interpretations, do suffice to give me pause.”

“Excellent,” she said. “Now release me.”

“But you have not yet explained your role here,” I said, “nor that of Pertinax.”

“Nor is it my intention to do so,” she said.

“Very well,” I said.

“Untie me,” she said.

I turned about, and looked out to sea. I was now sure of it. What had been hitherto no more than a dot on the horizon, perhaps no more than a sea bird resting on the waves, even sleeping, as they do, was now clearly, though still small, and far off, a sail.

“There is a ship,” I said, shading my eyes.

“There have been such ships,” she said, straining her eyes, pulling against her bonds, looking outward, toward the horizon.

“One came in yesterday,” I said, “from which were disembarked, following the surmises of Pertinax, your subordinate, and not master, bandits, brigands, or such.”

“Untie me! Untie me, swiftly!” she begged.

I wondered if an agent, or agents, of Priest-Kings might be aboard that vessel, now so far off, now seeming so tiny.

“Untie me, now!” she cried.

“As you are a free woman,” I said, “even though one of Earth, I have treated you with some circumspection. In the codes such matters are gray, for it is commonly supposed that a Home Stone would be shared. If you were a slave, of course, whether of Earth or not, the matter would not even come up. Too, as you may not understand, even a Gorean free woman is expected to show a fellow respect, as another free person. If she insults him, belittles him, ridicules him, or treats him in any way which he deems improper or unbecoming, sometimes even to the glance, depending on the fellow, she is considered as having put away the armor of her status, and may be dealt with as the male sees fit. This is particularly the case if there is no shared Home Stone. Other situations are also regarded as ones in which the woman has voluntarily, or inadvertently, divested herself of the social and cultural mantles usually sufficient to protect her freedom and honor, such as walking the high bridges at night, undertaking dangerous expeditions or voyages, traversing lonely areas of a city, entering into a paga tavern, and so on.”

“There is a ship there!” she said. “I can see it clearly!”

“Yes,” I said.

“Can they see us?” she asked, desperately.

“Perhaps,” I said. “They may have a glass of the Builders.”

“If they see me here,” she cried, “half naked, bound, collared, what will they do with me?”

“Put you on a chain, of course,” I said.

“But I am free!” she said.

“Perhaps for the better part of an Ahn, or so,” I said.

“I am free,” she said. “Your codes! Your codes! You must protect me!”

“My codes do not require that,” I said.

“You would not leave me here as I am!” she cried.

“You are mistaken,” I said. “That is precisely what I will do.”

I then turned away, to withdraw into the forest.

“Wait!” she begged. “Wait!”

I turned to face her.

“I will speak, I will speak!” she cried.

“As you will,” I said.

“Untie me!” she cried. “Let us hide! They can see us here. They may have already seen us here.”

“Possibly,” I said.

“Untie me!” she begged, wildly.

“Speak first,” I said.

“We were brought here, Pertinax and I, by a disk craft, and told to wait for you,” she wept. “We were to encounter you, and show you hospitality, and then conduct you into the forest, to a rendezvous. Pertinax knows the place. He has been there. The trail is marked.”

“What sort of rendezvous,” I asked, “with whom, and to what purpose?”

“I know little,” she said, “save that they would enlist your services.”

“My services are not easily enlisted,” I said.

“They will have a hold over you,” she said. “A woman.”

“What woman?” I asked.

“I do not know!” she cried.

“I understand little of this,” I said.

“It has to do with tarns, and a ship, a great ship,” she said.

“What woman?” I asked. “What woman?”

“I do not know,” she said.

I untied her hands and she pulled away from the tree, weeping, and fled back some yards into the forest. There I saw her stop for a moment and tear wildly, hysterically, at her collar. She could not, of course, remove it. It was nicely on her, a typical Gorean collar of the higher latitudes, sturdy, flat, close-fitting. She tried to jerk down the hem of the shortened tunic, on both sides, but it sprang upward again. She then cried out in misery, and disappeared into the trees, presumably to warn Pertinax.

Presumably he would see her differently now, given the alterations to her tunic. And he would note, too, from its shortening, and the ragged lower edges, that the key was no longer in its place.

Yes, I thought, he would doubtless see her differently now.

And doubtless she would be well aware that she would now be being seen differently.

To be sure, I did not think she had anything to fear from Pertinax. It would be quite different, of course with a Gorean male.

I then turned to note the ship, now something like a hundred yards off shore.

It was a round ship, more deeply keeled, more broadly beamed, than the long ship.

It would not beach.

A longboat was being put in the water.

It had four rowers and a helmsman, and one individual forward.

The individual forward, I supposed, would be he for whom I had been waiting, the agent of Priest-Kings.

I suspected that Constantina would by now be at the hut, begging, perhaps on her knees, in her desperation, and as she was now clothed, Pertinax to flee.

To be sure, it mattered little to me that she might observe the arrival of the newcomer.

Chapter Five

AN OLD ACQUAINTANCE IS RENEWED;

A NEW SHIP ARRIVES, AND DISCHARGES PASSENGERS AND CARGO;

I OBTAIN CONSIDERABLE INTELLIGENCE, BUT NOT ENOUGH

He waded ashore.

The longboat did not beach.

“You?” I said.

“From the time of the Five Ubars, in Port Kar,” he said.

“Before the ascendancy of the Council of Captains,” I said.

“It has been a long time,” he said.

“Do not approach too closely,” I said.

“I am unarmed,” he said, opening his hands and holding them to the sides. “But others are not.”

I did not unsheathe my weapon.

Two of the oarsmen from the longboat were in the water to their waists, and each held a crossbow, with a quarrel readied in the guide.

The other two oarsmen, oars outboard, and the helmsman, his hand on the tiller, nursed the boat, keeping it, as it was turned, muchly parallel to the shore. It could be easily swung about.

“Sullius Maximus,” I said.

“Officer to Chenbar, of Kasra, Ubar of Tyros,” he said.

“Traitor to Port Kar,” I said. “Mixer of poisons.”

He bowed, humbly.

“You recall,” he said, smiling.

“But you brewed an antidote,” I remarked.

“Not of my own free will,” he smiled.

He had been infected with his own toxin, which produced, in time, a broad paralysis, that he might prepare, if time permitted, its remedy. His lord, Chenbar, had not approved of poisoned steel, and I had once spared the Ubar’s life, on the 25th of Se-Kara. The antidote, proven in the case of Sullius Maximus, had been conveyed to Port Kar.

“I am pleased to see you are looking well,” said Sullius Maximus.

“How is it that I find you here?” I asked.

“Surely you know,” he said.

“Scarcely,” I said.

“Surely you do not think this is some eccentric coincidence,” he said.

“No,” I said.

“You are waiting for the agent of Priest-Kings,” he said.

I was silent.

“I am he,” he said.

“No,” I said.

“How else would I know of your location?”

“Kurii know,” I said.

“Who are Kurii?” he said.

“You do not know?” I said.

“No,” he said.

“How is it that you, an agent of Priest-Kings, know not of Kurii?”

“To serve our lords, the masters of the Sardar,” he said, “one needs know no more than they deem suitable.”

“Perhaps they are your lords,” I said. “They are not mine.”

“Are they not the lords of us all,” he said, “are they not the gods of Gor?”

“And are the Initiates not their ministers and servitors,” I said.

“One must allow all castes their vanities,” he said.

“Doubtless,” I said.

“I understand,” he said, “that you have labored, now and then, on behalf of Priest-Kings.”

“Perhaps,” I said.

“I find their choice of agents strange,” he said. “You are a barbarian, more of a larl than a man. You know little of poetry, and your kaissa is commonplace.”

“My kaissa is satisfactory,” I said, “for one who is not a Player.”

“You are not even a caste or city champion,” he said.

“Are you?” I inquired.

“Games are for children,” he said.

“Kaissa is not for children,” I said. Life and death sometimes hung on the outcomes of a kaissa match, and war or peace. Cities had been lost in such matches, and slaves frequently changed hands.

Too, the game is beautiful.

Its fascinations, as those of art and music, exercise their spells and raptures.

“To be sure,” he said, “you do have, I gather, a certain audacious expertise in certain forms of vulgar weaponry.”

“Less sophisticated and urbane, doubtless,” I said, “than the administrations of poisons.”

“Do not be bitter,” he said. “All that was long ago, and seasons change.”

“Seasons, like enmities, and tides, return, do they not?” I asked.

“I come to you in friendship,” he said, “as partisans in a common cause.”

“I do not think you are an agent of Priest-Kings,” I said.

“I find it difficult, too,” he said, “to suppose that you are an agent of Priest-Kings.”

“I do not think of myself as such,” I said.

“But you are here,” he said.

“At the will of Priest-Kings, yes,” I said, “but I do not know why.”

“I am here to inform you,” he said.

“How do I know you are an agent of Priest-Kings?” I asked.

“Perhaps I am an unlikely agent,” he said. “Who am I to know? One might say the same of you, if you are indeed an agent. Who is to tell Priest-Kings who will be their instruments? Are you privy to their councils, can you read the mists, the fogs and clouds, which hover about the Sardar?”

I supposed it was possible that this man might be an agent of Priest-Kings. Doubtless they selected their human agents with an eye to probity and utility, not nobility, not honor. Too, the moralities of Priest-Kings might not be those of men, or of Kurii. Too, I knew there was a new dynasty in the Nest. The remnants of the older order might, by now, dispossessed and superseded, neglected and scorned, have long ago sought the pleasures of the Golden Beetle.

“You have some token, some sign, some credential, or such, which might testify to your legitimacy here, something which might certify your authenticity?”

“Certainly,” he said, reaching within his tunic.

I tensed.

He smiled.

He withdrew a loop of leather from within the tunic, on which loop was fastened a golden ring. This ring was something like two inches in diameter, and the way it hung suggested its weightiness.

The golden circle, incidentally, is taken as the sign of Priest-Kings. Such circles are often carried by high Initiates, on golden chains about their necks. Too, they are likely to appear on the walls, and over the gates, and such, of temples, and, within temples, they invariably surmount altars. Staffs surmounted with this symbol are often carried by Initiates, as well, and such staffs invariably figure in their ceremonial processions. The gold is the symbol of that which is rare, is precious, is constant, and does not tarnish. The circular form is a symbol of eternity, that which has no beginning, that which has no end. The blessings of Initiates are accompanied by the sign of Priest-Kings, a circular motion of the right hand. These blessings, on feast days, may be bestowed on the faithful without cost. Sometimes, of course, such blessings must be purchased. The favor of Priest-Kings is not easily obtained, and Initiates, as other castes, must live.

“Anyone,” I said, “might fix a ring of gold on a leather string.”

“That is how you know its authenticity,” said Sullius Maximus. “For those endeavoring in fraud, to abet a ruse, would surely fix the ring on a chain of gold.”

“May I see the ring?” I said.

I was not interested in the ring, of course, but the leather string, for leather can absorb certain substances, such as oil, or the exudates of a communicative organ.

Sullius Maximus cast me the ring, on its leather loop. He did not care to approach me too closely. I did not blame him. Might not a knife swiftly, like a striking viper, dart from its sheath, find its home in a startled heart, and might not the very body of that heart serve an assassin as shield, sheltering the assailant from the vengeance of the crossbows’ metal-finned, soon-flighted penetrant iron?