by John Norman
“You should soon board,” I said.
“I shall, shortly, Commander,” said he. “My pack is already stowed. But there are vendors from the local villages, at the end of the wharf, and I wish to purchase small articles.”
“Something by which to remember the World’s End?” I asked.
“Ceramics,” he said, “and tiny tokens of carved jade.”
“I wish you well,” I said.
“And I, you, Commander,” he said.
I watched him make his way through the crowd toward the land end of the wharf, toward a cluster of townsmen, merchants, and peasants, each with their case or sack of goods.
I heard the second gong.
Water would be licking higher now on the pilings of the wharf.
Shortly after the third gong the mooring lines would be freed, retrieved, and the ship would cast off.
* * *
“This way,” had said Lord Okimoto, leading me through one of the long corridors in the castle of Temmu, the central keep of the mountaintop holding.
He stopped before a large door, but one not much different from similar doors along the hallway.
It was, however, bolted shut, on the outside.
“I advise you, Tarl Cabot, tarnsman,” said Lord Okimoto, ponderous in his long, colorful, swollen robes, “to accede to the polite request of Lord Temmu.”
“The surrender of the tarn cavalry, its relocation, the replacement of its officers with his creatures, and such,” I said.
“Yes,” said Lord Okimoto.
“What is on the other side of the door?” I said.
“You shall see,” he said.
He slid back the bolt.
“Do not bolt the door when I am within,” I said.
“I will not,” he said. “We have no wish to accept the consequences of detaining you.”
“The orders issued to the cavalry are quite clear,” I said.
“That is understood,” he said.
He opened the door, and I entered. He then closed the door. I listened. The bolt was not moved.
The room was a typical Pani room, ample, airy, tasteful, and sparsely furnished, with a few mats, a low table, and a painted screen, suggesting marsh birds in flight. It was naturally lit, with a large panel open to the outside, leading to a terrace. One could not, however, reach the terrace from the room, as the opening was barred.
I was surprised.
“Forgive me, lady,” I said. “A mistake has been made.”
I had expected to find something different in this room. I had expected to find a slave, one not much different, if at all, from those who had been bartered for a fukuro, or so, of rice, during the miseries of the siege. Perhaps it would be a slave from Port Kar, or perhaps from Ko-ro-ba, where I had first donned the scarlet of the warrior, with whom I would be threatened, whose fate might be dire, unless I complied with the commands of Lord Temmu.
But this gave every appearance of being a free woman.
Moreover, she was not in the kimono and obi, and fitted with the comb and slippers, of a high Pani female, but might have been encountered in a salon of glorious Ar, on a boulevard in Turia, in a market in Argentum, at a song drama in Torcadino, at the races in Venna. She was garbed in the colorful robes of concealment common in the high cities, and gracefully veiled.
“You!” she said. Her hand reached up and clutched the veiling more closely about her features.
“I do not think I understand,” I said. “It seems you know me.”
She moved back, until her back was pressed against the bars which prevented one from reaching the terrace.
For some reason, she seemed frightened.
I trusted that she was not distressed.
I suppose that it is difficult for one unfamiliar with Gorean culture to appreciate the social status of the Gorean free woman, at least in the high cities. It is quite different from the status, such as it is, in which the women of, say, Earth, are commonly held. In a world where, in effect, all women are free, freedom does not mean very much, but, in a culture where not all women are free, it means a great deal. Indeed, I have sometimes suspected that the low status of the “free woman” on Earth, together with her common lack of veiling, the freedom with which she reveals her wrists, hands, ankles, and such, have led many Goreans to regard her as open slave stock, as opposed to, in the view of some, concealed slave stock, as in the case of the Gorean free woman. I think there is little doubt that the transition between a Gorean free woman and slavery is far more radical and cataclysmic than that between an Earth woman and slavery. On the other hand, the Gorean free woman is familiar with slaves, and may have owned some of her own, is wholly familiar with the condition, and such, whereas the Earth girl is commonly unfamiliar with such things. Accordingly, in contrast with the Gorean free woman, the Earth girl’s understanding that she is going to be marked,
collared, and sold is likely to take her very much unawares. The capture and enslavement of a Gorean free woman is usually regarded as a coup. Earth girls, on the other hand, are herded and handled much as the meaningless but lovely cattle they are taken to be.
“I think, high lady,” I said, “I have been introduced into the wrong room. It seems rooms were changed, and my guide was not informed. I am in the wrong place. Forgive me. I shall withdraw.”
“Who did you expect to find?” she asked.
“Forgive me, lady,” I said. “I intend no insult, but I expected to find a slave.”
“You do not recognize me?” she said.
“You are discreetly veiled,” I said.
“You do not recognize my voice?” she said.
“It reminds me of one whose voice it cannot be,” I said.
“And whose voice would that be?” she asked.
“It is not important,” I said.
“I have been told to wait for you,” she said.
“Then,” I said, “I am somehow in the right room.”
“I must wait for you,” she said.
“As the door was bolted,” I said, “it seems you had little choice in the matter.”
“This room,” she said, “is a cell.”
“Are you under sentence?” I asked.
“Have you come to put me to your blade,” she asked, “now, before you leave the room?”
“No,” I said.
“I may yet live a time?” she said.
“Of course,” I said.
“You have come to carry me away?” she said.
“No,” I said. “You seem to know me, but I do not know you.”
“You are Tarl Cabot,” she said, “a tarnsman, the commander of the cavalry.”
“I am Tarl Cabot,” I said, “and a tarnsman. I no longer command the cavalry. The commander of the cavalry is now a Pani tarnsman, the warrior, Tajima.” Both Torgus and Lysander had elected to return to the continent, with many other mercenaries, on the River Dragon.
“I am called ‘Adraste’,” she said.
“A lovely Cosian name,” I said. “‘Called’?” I asked.
“Yes,” she said. “It is the name which has been put on me.”
“I see,” I said.
In that moment, the room changed.
Clouds must have sped from the sun, because the sunlight poured into the room, like fire, and cast the shadows of bars across the room.
I strode to her, and she pushed back, frightened, against the bars, and I bent down, and drew up the hem of her robes to the calf.
“You are not shod,” I said.
“No,” she said.
“A well-turned calf,” I said, and dropped the hem of the robes, and backed away.
“Those ankles would look well, shackled,” I said.
“They have been shackled, often enough,” she said.
“How dare you don the garments of a free woman?” I said.
“I must dress as I am told,” she said.
“Remove your veil,” I said.
She tore it away.
&
nbsp; “It cannot be!” I whispered.
“It is,” she said, coldly.
“Replace your veil,” I said. “And remove it properly, gracefully.”
“Am I commanded?” she asked.
“Yes,” I said.
“You dare to command me?” she asked.
“Do you wish to be whipped?” I asked.
“You could do that—to me?” she asked.
“I trust a command need not be repeated,” I said.
She then replaced the veil, and, seductively, removed it.
“Shall I now remove my other garments?” she asked.
“No,” I said.
“I am face-stripped before you,” she said. “Perhaps that is sufficient.”
“It will do for now,” I said.
“You are hateful and weak,” she said.
“I never betrayed a Home Stone,” I said.
“Tarsk!” she exclaimed.
“Perhaps you are aware,” I said, “that there is an enormous bounty on you, an enormous reward for your return to Ar, and the judgment of Marlenus, Ubar of Ubars.”
“Ten thousand tarn disks,” she said, “of gold, and of double weight.”
“That is my understanding,” I said.
Such wealth would buy fleets, armies, and cities.
“I suppose it is little enough,” I said, “for the apprehension of an arch villainess, who conspired with dissident elements in the city to betray Ar to her enemies, and would then rule, as a puppet, a false Ubara, under the aegis of Cos and her allies.”
“I was truly Ubara!” she said.
“Only on the sufferance of Myron, polemarkos of Temos, military governor of Ar.”
“I ruled!” she cried.
“To the extent permitted by the spears of Cos, and her allies.”
“I was muchly justified,” she said. “By humiliation, by deed, and blood!”
“How so?” I said.
“I, the daughter of Marlenus,” she said, “was captured by Rask of Treve, and kept for a time as his slave. He fell enamored, the fool, of a blond, worthless, barbarian chit, El-in-or, and gave me to a panther girl, Verna, by name, who took me to the northern forests, a slave. There I was eventually sold, and was purchased by Samos, of Port Kar. When I was returned by Samos to Ar I was sequestered by Marlenus.”
“You had begged to be purchased,” I said, “a slave’s act, and thus you shamed Marlenus, and he confined you, in effect, to chambers in the Central Cylinder. When an accident befell him in the Voltai and he was thought dead, the conspirators recruited you and the dark work was begun. Later, Marlenus, whose accident had temporarily produced a loss of memory, returned to the city, recovered his memory, and the restoration was begun.”
“I was innocent,” she said.
“As an ost,” I said.
“No!” she said.
“How is it that you are here?” I asked.
“I do not know,” she said. “The city rose, the streets were filled with vengeful citizens, citadels and guard stations were stormed, men cried for blood, proscription lists were posted, hundreds of collaborators were caught and impaled. We tried to hold the Central Cylinder, but could not do so. Men climbed toward us, with brands of fire and blades of steel. Tarnsmen wheeled about. We would make our last stand on the roof of the Central Cylinder. Seremides, commander of the Taurentians, would try to buy his freedom, delivering me to the enemy, sacrificing me to the wrath of Marlenus. Then there was smoke, blasts of light, a vehicle which moved like a cloud of steel, or a steel bird without wings, and I lost consciousness. I awakened on a chain in a compound in the northern forests, in a place called Shipcamp. Across a broad river, when the gates of the compound were opened, I saw a mighty ship, on which, later, I and others, secured and hooded, were boarded. For the most part, I, and others, were confined below decks.”
In her removal from the roof of the Central Cylinder, I saw the work, of course, of either Priest-Kings or Kurii, or both.
“I understand little, if anything, of this,” she said.
“Much is obscure,” I said, “but you were abducted that those of Lord Temmu might have some means to force me to their will.”
“Because of your helpless love of me!” she laughed.
“That seems to be their thinking on the matter,” I said.
“And now I am here,” she said.
“As am I,” I said.
“Once we were Companions,” she said.
“No longer,” I said. The Gorean Companionship terminates in a year, unless renewed.
“You deserted me!” she charged.
“It would seem so,” I said. How could I speak to her of warring species, of Priest-Kings and Kurii, of fabulous weapons and technologies, of a fearful contest on which the fate of worlds might hang?
“You are a despicable tarsk,” she said.
“I never betrayed a Home Stone,” I said.
“Many men,” she said, “have found me beautiful.”
“You are beautiful,” I said.
“And yet you fled from me,” she said, angrily.
“It seems so,” I said.
“You tired of me?” she said.
“One would be less likely to tire of you, than to cast you aside, as worthless,” I said.
“I am the most beautiful woman on all Gor!” she said.
“Do not be absurd,” I said. “There are thousands upon thousands of women on Gor as beautiful as you, or more beautiful, and mostly in collars.”
“Hateful beast!” she snarled.
“Beware,” I said.
“None are of the blood of Marlenus!” she cried.
“You were disowned,” I said, “following your shaming of Marlenus, prior to your sequestration in the Central Cylinder.”
“One cannot disown blood!” she said.
“True,” I said.
“And I am of the blood of Marlenus!” she cried.
“Perhaps,” I said.
“‘Perhaps’?” she cried.
“I see little of Marlenus in you,” I said.
“Beast!” she wept, and threw herself toward me, to strike me with her small fists, but I caught her wrists, and held them, she then helpless in my grasp. I regarded her. Fear came into her eyes. She knew that, as she was held, she might, if I wished, by a suitable pressure applied to those helpless, slender wrists, be forced to her knees before me.
I released her, and she retreated to the bars, and stood there, against them, her back to them. “Beast!” she said.
“You were brought to Port Kar after your purchasing in the northern forests by Samos of Port Kar,” I said. “At that time, I was in Port Kar, returned there recently from the northern forests, crippled, confined to a chair, having been cut by a sword which bore a smear of poison on its blade. There, in the holding of Samos of Port Kar, your then master, you were brought before me, and you, in your impatience, pride, and anger, scorned, derided, and mocked me.”
“Justly so,” she said. “You were always of Earth, the world of slaves and fools! I had once thought you a man, but how wrong I was! Though I had twice tried to kill you, once in tarnflight over the great Spider Swamp south of Ar, and once in its vicinity, with a knife, you neither slew me nor put me to the collar and brand. How soft you were, how forgiving you were, contemptible weakling! How like those of Earth! Have they no claws, no fangs, no blood, no heart? How far you were from the proud, severe, proportioned ways of Gor! And in the camp of Mintar the Merchant, when I pathetically petitioned the iron, when I implored the release of my womanhood, and the mercy of bondage, when I sought your collar, when I begged that you would make me your slave, that I might be fulfilled and owned, that I might be wholly and uncompromisingly yours, as much as a boot or tarsk, you refused me! Oh, how much a man of Earth you were! A woman might kneel before you, needfully, begging to be your slave, and you, startled, taken aback, upset, confused, and embarrassed, reddened and sweating, knowing not what to do or how to respond, would hurry he
r to her feet, implicitly chiding her for her deepest needs, and deliver her to the woeful ice and exile of freedom! Men and women are not the same, oh, piteous scion of the smug, gray world, so vain of its pollutions and peculiar pathologies! So you will not accept us as we were bred to be? You will deny the woman to herself, as you would deny the man to himself! As you will then; so be it! How I detested, and do detest, your weakness, your futility, and vacillation! And I saw you then, in the hall of the holding of
Samos of Port Kar, bent over, bundled in your blankets for warmth, weak, confined to that chair, scarcely able to move! I knew then how I might, with impunity, even from you, denounce you for the failure, the weakling and fool, you were! So I, to my delight, and in security, castigated and berated you, well and lengthily, as you so richly deserved.”
“I have not forgotten,” I said.
“And even then,” she said, “when Samos would have put me to the lash, even had me cast bound to the urts in the canals of the city, you did nothing, but requested that Samos deliver me to the city of my Home Stone, Ar, and to my father, Marlenus, as a free woman!”
“He did so,” I said.
“Yes!” she said. “But he did more, as well! He had seen to it that it was inscribed on my papers, certified with the seal of the slaver, that I had begged to be purchased. This appeared as an endorsement on my papers. Such things are of interest in some cases, to some masters.”
“I would think so,” I said, “as in the case of a Ubar’s daughter.”
“And then he, and two members of his crew, who had accompanied us to Ar, independently confirmed the matter.”
“And you confessed the matter?” I said.
“Surely,” she said. “How could I not? Naturally, of course, I proclaimed its justification!”
“Goreans admit no justification for that act,” I said.
“Beast!” she said.
“And so,” I said, “as you had shamed Marlenus, he saw to it that you would be kept from public view, that you would be hidden, that you would remain sequestered in the Central Cylinder.”
“Yes!” she said, in rage.
“Until,” I said, “Marlenus, on a hunting trip, disappeared somewhere in the Voltai range and traitors, emboldened by his absence, approached you.”
“Perhaps,” she said.
