Witness of Gor (92 page)

"It is rumored Torcadino," said the officer.

"And thence to Ar?”

"Doubtless.”

"Such forces might be turned eventually toward the northeast," said the pit master. "The mountains could swarm with them. There could be too many to turn back.”

"Ar must fall," said the officer, in a terrible voice. "She is our ancient enemy.”

"And what may we expect from Cos, and Tyros, once entrenched upon the mainland?”

queried the pit master.

The officer looked down, angrily.

"Ar is divided against itself," said the pit master. "There are traitors in high places.”

"Excellent," growled the officer.

"Had there not been he would not have been encouraged into the Voltai, had there not have been we would not have received the information which permitted us to ambush and snare him as we did.”

At that point, from outside, somewhere down the corridor, we heard a sounding of metal, perhaps the beating of a sword hilt on a closed gate.

"Open!" we heard. "We have orders! Open!”

"The passage is sealed," said the pit master.

"It must be opened," said the officer. "The administration has cleared them. They have authorization.”

"What has Rask said of this?" asked the pit master.

"He has pledged a thousand men to stop them," said the officer.

"And would precipitate war," said the pit master, irritably.

"And what Kaissa would you play?" inquired the officer.

"I have a game in mind," said the pit master.

"Neither of us may betray the honor of our post," said the officer.

"And where is found the house of honor?”

"He is to be surrendered to them," said the officer. "There is no other way.”

"You understand what that means?”

"There is no other way.”

"There is a possibility.”

"None we may with honor pursue.”

"Honor has many voices, and many songs.”

"Open! Open!" we heard, from down the corridor. There was a repetition of the pounding on the bars of the gate. "Open! Open!”

"We need time!" said the officer.

"They will not have their way this day," said the pit master.

"And how is that?" asked the officer.

"Their papers are not in order," said the pit master.

"I see," said the officer.

"Open," we heard. "Open!”

"Coming, coming, Masters!" called the pit master.

THIRTY ONE "We have seen a hundred prisoners!" cried the fellow in the black tunic, the leader of the strangers.

"None is he, I am sure of it, Master," said a furtive, twisted fellow, his face a mass of jerking scar tissue.

"If I knew whom you seek, perhaps," said the pit master.

"Gito will know him," said the fellow in black.

"We can kill every male prisoner in the depths," said one of the fellows in black, a lieutenant.

"You have no authorization for that," said the pit master.

"You know whom we seek," said the leader of the men in black tunics.

There were twentythree in their party, the leader, a lieutenant, the fellow called 'Gito', and twenty men. Each of the twenty men carried a sword, a dagger, and a crossbow. Some had their bows set.

"If you have come to take custody of prisoner, as your orders state,”

said the pit master, "why have you no chains with you?”

I had noted this, too. One of the men carried a leather sack. It was the only unique, or unusual, object they seemed to have with them.

"Are any of these a preferred slave?" asked the leader of the fellows in black.

The ten female slaves kept in the quarters of the pit master, I among them, had been, at the insistence of the leader of the strangers, brought along in the corridors. Our hands were bound behind our backs. We were stripped. I had not understood why we were taken along. I now began, uneasily, to suspect why.

"They are only slaves," said the pit master.

"Cut their throats," said the leader of the strangers.

We cried out, and shrank back, and might have run, but there was nowhere to run. Men were all about. One fellow took me by the hair, to hold me in place.

"Hold!" said the pit master. "Know that these women are the property of the state of Treve!

You are within the walls of Treve. You are sheltered by her Home Stone.

You cannot deal with the property of Treve with impunity.”

"You have delayed us long enough," snarled the leader of the blacktunicked men. "We came yesterday to the pits, and you put us off with some absurd technicality.”

"We have our regulations, Master," said the pit master.

"That technicality was cleared this morning," said the leader of the strangers.

The majority of the men in black tunics, incidentally, save for two who returned to the surface, to repair the fault in their papers, had remained overnight in the quarters of the pit master. It seemed that, as tenacious and terrible as sleen, they would take their repose on the very trail they followed. Too, I am sure they did not trust the pit master. The officer of Treve had left the quarters of the pit master shortly after the arrival of the strangers, putatively to ensure that new papers would be properly prepared, that there would be no further difficulty in the documents, supposedly of transfer or extradition. The men in the black tunics who had remained overnight in the quarters of the pit master, including their leader and his lieutenant, seemed to me strange fellows. They were much unlike many, if not most, of the men of this world. They did not laugh, they did not joke, they did not tell stories. They were silent, frightening, terrible men. I do not think they had Home Stones. If they had some loyalty, and I do not doubt they did, I think it was rather to some bloody oath, or dark covenant, or even to a leader. They attended to their equipment, they sharpened their swords.

They drank only water.

They ate sparingly. The hospitality of the pit master, offering us to them, was declined. Even the women chained at the wall were not touched. We were, however, denied our blankets, and we must all be chained, even those in the kennels. One of the girls at the wall, Tissia, I do not know what she had done, was savagely kicked by one of the blacktunicked fellows.

"Temptress!" he denounced her. She wept and crawled away from him, pressing herself against the wall in her chains. I supposed we were all temptresses, all women.

But I could not understand the meaningless savagery of his rejection of her. How different it was from the average response of the average man of this world. The men of this world delight in our femaleness, and in its joyous subjugation, in owning and mastering it.

They prize our softness, our beauty, our desirability. And it does not occur to them, in this natural world, to conceal their desires to relate to it in the order of nature, as a dominant sex to one whose biological calling it is to delight, to please, and obey. But these men, these men in dark tunics, were so different! They had us naked in our chains, but then they ignored us.

It was no wonder that we drew back in our kennels, and huddled against the wall. Such treatment made us feel small, and ashamed of our beauty. But then perhaps these men had other concerns, concerns which took priority over the curves of chained bond-sluts. Perhaps when their business was done we, or such as we, might be recollected. Perhaps we might then, nude, serve them their food and drink, diffidently. I would fear to serve such men. This morning, before they left the quarters of the pit master each had, in turn, turned away from us, then being anointed, or something, by one of his fellows. Each, following this ritual, had then donned his helmet.

"This one," said the lieutenant, pulling Fina forward by the hairy "was not kenneled.”

"Cut her throat," said the leader of the strangers.

"No!" said the pit master, raising his hand.

"Show us the lower corridors," said the leader of the darkly clad men.

"No, Master," wept Fina.

"They are dangerous," said the pit master.

"Show us," said the leader of the strangers.

"I will show you," said the pit master.

"He is a weakling," said the lieutenant.

"Release the slave," said the leader of the strangers, "but keep her, and the others, with us.”

The fellow who had brought Fina forward ft her go. She, sobbing, began to back away. But another fellow sopped her, forcibly. He took her by the upper left arm and thrust her forward.

She would remain with us.

"You will recognize him, my good Gito?" inquired the leader of the strangers.

"I am sure of it," said the furtive fellow, the side of his face moving under the scar tissue. His face was such that it might once have been thrust into boiling oil.

"Go first," said the leader of the strangers to the pit master.

"Master!" protested Fina, in misery. But she was cuffed to silence.

I had seen nothing of the officer of Treve this morning. He had, I gathered, thought it best to avoid the depths this day. Indeed, the guards of the pits had been dismissed. "We have no need of them," had said the leader of the helmeted, darkly clad brethren.

We followed the pit master, descending toward the lower corridors.

"Cursed Assassins!" cried a fellow from a cell.

In a few minutes we were in the lower corridors. Here and there there was water on the corridor floor. It was cold to my bare feet. Sometimes it splashed, too, on my ankles, from the tread of the men about me. By myself, or with the pit master, I could avoid the water, keeping to the higher parts of the floor, but it was not easy to do so now, I muchly in line, with the other girls, the men about. Here and there the ceiling of the corridor was so low that even I must bend over. Two of the fellows with the leader carried lanterns. The passage was lit, too, here and there, with tiny lamps. Common cord held my wrists behind my back.

I was tightly bound.

"Move back the observation panel on that door," said the leader of the helmeted men.

One of the fellows with a lantern undid the panel latch and slid the panel, in its tracks, to one side. He lifted the lantern near the opening and peered within.

"Something is within," he said.

"Open the door," said the leader of the helmeted men.

"There is only a peasant within," said the pit master. "He does not even know who he is.”

"And who is he?”

"41.”

"41?”

"Prisoners in this corridor are referred to only by numbers," said the pit master.

"Let us see him," said the leader of the strangers.

"I do not have the key," said the pit master.

"Why do you insist upon obstructing us in the line of our duty?”

inquired the leader of the strangers. "Do you think no report will be made of this to the administration, to the administrator, to the high council?”

"I do not have the keys," said the pit master.

"Keys may be fetched," said a man.

"Tools may be brought," said another. "We may then force the door.”

"I weary of these hindrances," said the leader of the helmeted men.

"Shall we go back for the keys, for tools?" asked a man.

"Where are the keys?" asked the leader of the helmeted men.

"I do not know," said the pit master.

"Seize him," said the leader of the helmeted men.

The pit master was seized. Four men held him. He did not struggle. I think they did not know his strength. He did not try to throw them off.

The leader of the helmeted men pulled the pit master's head up, by the hair.

"You are a tarsk, indeed," said the leader of the helmeted men.

The pit master looked up at him, his mouth open, his eyes rolling. He growled, a sound not human.

"Where are the keys?" asked the leader of the helmeted men.

"I do not know," said the pit master.

"Kill him," said the leader of the helmeted men. The lieutenant removed his dagger from its sheath.

"No, Masters!" cried Fina, thrusting herself forward, falling to her knees in the damp corridor. "He has not spoken the truth to you. The keys are here! They are on a cord, about his neck!”

The leader of the helmeted men reached inside the tunic of the pit master and pulled forth keys, on a string. He broke the string, jerking it against the back of the neck of the pit master, freeing it.

"Open the door," he said to one of the men.

The pit master looked down at Fina.

"Forgive me, Master," she said, putting down her head.

The door, after a time, was swung open.

One of the men with a lantern entered first. He was followed by the leader of the helmeted men. Then entered the pit master, who had been released by those who had held him. Some other men, too, entered, including the lieutenant.