John Norman - Counter Earth01 - Tarnsman Of Gor

by Tarnsman Of Gor(Lit)

  As I stood tensely, ringed by the lances of the caravan guards, the wall of tharlarions parted to allow the approach of Mintar, of the Merchant Caste. A bejeweled, curtained platform slung between the slow, swaying bodies of two of the broad tharlarions appeared. The beasts were halted by their strap-master, and after some seconds the curtains parted. Seated inside on several pillows of tasseled silk was a mammoth toad of a man, whose head was as round as a tarn's egg, the eyes nearly lost in the folds of fat, pocked skin. A slender straggling wisp of hair dropped languidly from the fat chin. The little eyes of the merchant swept the scene quickly, like a bird's, startling in their contrast with the plethoric giganticism of his frame.

  "So," said the merchant, "Kazrak of Port Kar has met his match?"

  "It is the first challenge I have ever lost," replied Kazrak proudly.

  "Who are you?" asked Mintar, leaning forward a bit, inspecting first me and then Talena, whom he regarded with small interest.

  "Tarl of Bristol," I said. "And this is my woman, whom I claim by sword-right."

  Mintar closed his eyes and opened them and pulled on his beard. He had, of course, never heard of Bristol, but did not wish to admit it, at least before his men. Moreover, he was far too shrewd to pretend that he had heard of the city. After all, what if there was no such city?

  Mintar looked at the ring of mounted spearmen encircling me. "Does any man in my service challenge for the woman of Tarl of Bristol?" he asked.

  The warriors shifted nervously. Kazrak laughed, a derisive snort. One of the mounted warriors said, "Kazrak of Port Kar is the best sword in the caravan."

  Mintar's face clouded. "Tarl of Bristol," he said, "you have disabled my finest sword."

  One or two of the mounted warriors readjusted their grip on their lances. I became acutely conscious of the proximity of the several points.

  "You owe me a debt," said Mintar. "Can you pay the hiring price of such a sword?"

  "I have no goods other than this girl," I said, "and I will not give her up."

  Mintar sniffed. "In the wagons I have four hundred fully as beautiful, destined for the City of Tents." He looked at Talena carefully, but his appraisal was remote, detached. "Her sale price would not bring half the hiring price of a sword such as that of Kazrak of Port Kar." Talena reacted as if slapped.

  "Then I cannot pay the debt I owe you," I said.

  "I am a merchant," said Mintar, "and it is in my code to see that I am paid."

  I set myself to sell my life dearly. Oddly enough, my, only fear was what would happen to the girl.

  "Kazrak of Port Kar," said Mintar, "do you agree to surrender the balance of your hiring price to Tarl of Bristol if he takes your place in my service?"

  "Yes," responded Kazrak. "He has done me honor and is my sword brother."

  Mintar seemed satisfied. He looked at me. "Tarl of Bristol," he said, "do you take service with Mintar, of the Merchant Caste?"

  "If I do not?" I asked.

  "Then I shall order my men to kill you," sighed Mintar, "and we shall both suffer a loss."

  "Oh, Ubar of Merchants," I said, "I would not willingly see your profits jeopardized."

  Mintar relaxed on the cushions and seemed pleased. I realized, to my amusement, that he had been afraid that some particle of his investment might have been sacrificed. He would have had a man killed rather than risk the loss of a tenth of a taro disk, so well he knew the codes of his caste.

  "What about the girl?" asked Mintar.

  "She must accompany me," I said.

  "If you wish," he said, "I will buy her."

  "She is not for sale."

  "Twenty tarn disks," Mintar proposed.

  I laughed.

  Mintar smiled, too. "Forty," he said.

  "No," I said.

  He seemed less pleased.

  "Forty-five," he said, his voice flat.

  "No," I said.

  "Is she of High Caste?" asked Mintar, apparently puzzled at my lack of interest in his bargaining. Perhaps his price was too low for a girl of High Caste.

  "I am," announced Talena proudly, "the daughter of a rich merchant, the richest on Gor, stolen from her father by this tarnsman. His tarp was killed, and he is taking me to-to Bristol-to be his slave."

  "I am the richest merchant on Gor," said Mintar calmly.

  Talena gulped.

  "If your father is a merchant, tell me his name," he said. "I will know of him."

  "Great Mintar," I spoke up, "forgive this she-tharlarion. Her father was a goat keeper by the swamp forests of Ar, and I did steal her, but she begged me to take her from the village. She foolishly ran away with me, thinking I would take her to Ar, to dress her in jewels and silks and give her quarters in the high cylinders. As soon as we left her village, I put the bracelets on her and am taking her to Bristol, where she will tend my goats."

  The soldiers laughed uproariously, Kazrak loudest of all. For a moment I was afraid Talena was going to announce that she was the daughter of the Ubar Marlenus, preferring possible impalement to the insult of being considered the offspring of a goat keeper.

  Mintar seemed amused. "While in my service, you may keep her on my chain if you wish," he said.

  "Mintar is generous," I granted.

  "No," said Talena. "I will share the tent of my warrior."

  "If you like," said Mintar, paying no attention to Talena, "I will arrange her sale in the City of Tents and add her price to your wages."

  "If I sell her, I will sell her myself," I said.

  "I am an honest merchant," said Mintar, "and I would not cheat you, but you do well to handle your own affairs."

  Mintar eased his great frame deeper into the silken pillows and motioned the strap-master of his tharlarions to close the curtains. Before they swept shut, he said, "You will never get forty-five tarn disks."

  I suspected he was right. He undoubtedly had better merchandise, more reasonably priced.

  Led by Kazrak, I went with Talena, walking back along the line of wagons to see where she would be placed. Beside one of several long wagons of the sort covered with yellow and blue silk, I removed the brace- =s lets from her wrists and turned her over to an attendant.

  "I have a spare ankle ring," he said, and took Talena 1 by the arm, thrusting her inside the wagon. In the wagon there were some twenty girls, dressed in the slave livery of Gor, perhaps ten on a side, chained to a metal bar which ran the length of the wagon. Talena would not like that. Before she disappeared, she called y over her shoulder saucily, "You're not rid of me as easily as this, Tarl of Bristol."

  "See if you can slip the ankle ring," laughed Kazrak, and led me back among the supply wagons.

  We had gone scarcely ten paces and Talena could hardly have been fastened in the wagon before we heard a female scream of pain and a bevy of howls and shrieks.

  From the wagon came the sound of rolling bodies, slamming and cracking against the sides, and the rattle of chains on wood, pierced by squeals of pain and anger. The attendant leaped into the back of the wagon with his strap, and there was added to the din the sound of his curses and the crack of the strap as he smartly laid about him. As Kazrak and I watched, the attendant, puffing and furious, emerged from the wagon, dragging

  Talena by the hair. As Talena struggled and kicked and the girls in the wagon shouted their approval and encouragement to the attendant, he angrily hurled Talena into my arms. Her hair was in wild disarray; there were nail marks on her shoulder and four strap welts on her back. Her arm was bruised. Her dress had been half torn from her.

  "Keep her in your tent," snarled the attendant.

  "Let the Priest-Kings blast me if she didn't do it," said Kazrak with admiration, "A true she-tharlarion."

  Talena lifted a bloody nose to me and smiled brightly.

  The neat few days were among the happiest of my life, as Talena and I became a part of Mintar's slow, ample caravan, members of its graceful, interminable, colorful procession. It seemed the routine of the journe
y would never end, and I grew enamored of the long line of wagons, each filled with its various goods, those mysterious metals and gems, rolls of cloth, foodstuffs, wines and Paga, weapons and harness, cosmetics and perfumes, medicines and slaves.

  Mintar's caravan, like most, was harnessed long before dawn and traveled until the heat of the day. Camp would be made early in the afternoon. The beasts would be watered and fed, the guards set, the wagons secured, and the members of the caravan would turn to their cooking fires. In the evening the strap-masters and warriors would amuse themselves with stories and songs, recounting their exploits, fictitious and otherwise, and bawling out their raucous harmonies under the influence of Paga.

  In those days I learned to master the high tharlarion, one of which had been assigned to me by the caravan's tharlarion master. These gigantic lizards had been bred on Gor for a thousand generations before the first tarn was tamed, and were raised from the leathery shell to carry warriors. They responded to voice signals, conditioned into their tiny brains in the training years. Nonetheless, the butt of one's lance,' striking about the eye or ear openings, for there are few other sensitive areas in their scaled hides, is occasionally necessary to impress your will on the monster.

  The high tharlarions, unlike their draft brethren, the slow-moving, four footed broad tharlarions, were carnivorous. However, their metabolism was slower than that of a tarn, whose mind never seemed far from food and, if it was available, could consume half its weight in a single day. Moreover, they needed far less water than tarns. To me, the most puzzling thing about the domesticated tharlarions, and the way in which they differed most obviously from wild tharlarions and the lizards of my native planet, was their stamina, their capacity for sustained movement. When the high tharlarion moves slowly, its stride is best described as a proud, stalking movement, each great clawed foot striking the earth with a measured rhythm. When urged to speed, however, the high tharlarion bounds, in great leaping movements that carry it twenty paces at a time.

  The tharlarion saddle, unlike the tare saddle, is constructed to absorb shock. Primarily, this is done by constructing the tree of the saddle in such.a way that the leather seat is mounted on a hydraulic fitting which actually floats in a thick lubricant. Not only does this lubricant absorb much of the shock involved, but it tends, except under abnormal stress, to keep the seat of the saddle parallel to the ground. In spite of this invention, the mounted warriors always wear, as an essential portion of their equipment, a thick leather belt, tightly buckled about their abdomen. In addition, the mounted warriors inevitably wear a high, soft pair of boots called tharlarion boots. These protect their legs from the abrasive hides of their mounts. When a tharlarion runs, its hide could tear the unprotected flesh from a man's bones.

  Kazrak, as he had promised, turned over the balance of his hiring price to me-a very respectable eighty tarn disks. I argued with him to accept forty, on the ground that he was a sword brother, and at last convinced him to accept half of his own wages back. I felt better about this arrangement. Also, I didn't want Kazrak, when his wound was healed, to be reduced to challenging some luckless warrior for a bottle of Ka-la-na wine. We, with Talena, shared a tent, and, to Kazrak's amusement, I set aside a portion of the tent for the girl's private use, protecting it with a silk hanging.

  Because of the miserable condition of Talena's single garment, Kazrak and I procured from the supply master some changes of slave livery for the girl. This seemed to me the most appropriate way to diminish any possible suspicion as to her true identity. From his own tarn disks, Kazrak purchased two additional articles which he regarded as essential a collar, which he had properly engraved, and a slave whip.

  We returned to the tent, handing the new livery to Talena, who, in fury, regarded the brief, diagonally striped garments. She bit her lower lip, and, if Kazrak had not been present, would undoubtedly have roundly informed me of her displeasure.

  "Did you expect to be dressed as a free woman?" I snapped.

  She glared at me, knowing that she must play her role, at least in the presence of Kazrak. She tossed her head haughtily. "Of course not," she said, adding ironically, "Master." Her back straight as a tarp-goad, she disappeared behind the silk hanging. A moment later the torn rag of blue silk flew out from behind the hanging.

  A moment or two after, Talena stepped forth for our inspection, brazen and insolent. She wore the diagonally striped slave livery of Gor, as had Sana-that briefly skirted, simple, sleeveless garment.

  She turned before us.

  "Do I please you?" she asked.

  It was obvious she did. Talena was a most beautiful girl.

  "Kneel," I said, drawing out the collar.

  Talena blanched, but, as Kazrak chuckled, she knelt before me, her fists clenched.

  "Read it," I ordered.

  Talena looked at the engraved collar and shook with rage.

  "Read it," I said. "Out loud."

  She read the simple legend aloud: "I AM THE PROPERTY OF TARL OF BRISTOL."

  I snapped the slender steel collar on her throat, placing the key in my pouch.

  "Shall I call for the iron?" asked Kazrak.

  "No," begged Talena, now, for the first time, frightened.

  "I shall not brand her today," I said, keeping a straight face.

  "By the Priest-Kings," laughed Kazrak, "I believe you care for the shetharlarion."

  "Leave us, Warrior," I said.

  Kazrak laughed again, winked at me, and backed with mock ceremony from the tent.

  Talena sprang to her feet, her two fists flying for my face. I caught her wrists.

  "How dare you?" she raged. "Take this thing off," she commanded.

  She struggled fiercely, futilely. When in sheer frustration she stopped squirming, I released her. She pulled at the circle of steel on her throat. "Remove this degrading object," she commanded, "now!" She faced me, her mouth trembling with rage. "The daughter of the Ubar of Ar wears no man's collar."

  "The daughter of the Ubar of Ar," I said, "wears the collar of Tarl of Bristol."

  There was a long pause.

  "I suppose," she said, attempting to save face, "it would perhaps be appropriate for a tarnsman to place his collar on the captive daughter of a rich merchant."

  "Or the daughter of a goat keeper," I added.

  Her eyes snapped. "Yes, perhaps," she said. "Very well. I concede the reasonableness of your plan." Then she held out her small hand imperiously. "Give me the key," she said, "so that I may remove this when I please."

  "I will keep the key," I said. "And it will be removed, if at all, when I please."

  She straightened and turned away, enraged but helpless. "Very well," she said. Then, her eyes lit on the second object Kazrak had donated to the project of taming what he called the she-tharlarion-the slave whip. "What is the meaning of that?"

  "Surely you are familiar with a slave whip?" I asked, picking it up and, with amusement, slapping it once or twice in my palm.

  "Yes," she said, regarding me evenly. "I have often used it on my own slaves. Is it now to be used on me?"

  "If necessary," I said.

  "You wouldn't have the nerve," she said.

  "More likely the inclination," I said.

  She smiled.

  Her next remark astonished me. "Use it on me if I do not please you, Tarl of Bristol," she said. I pondered this, but she had turned away.

  In the next few days, to my surprise, Talena was buoyant, cheerful, and excited. She became interested in the caravan and would spend hours walking alongside the colored wagons, sometimes hitching rides with the strap masters, wheedling from them a piece of fruit or a sweetmeat. She even conversed delightedly with the inmates of the blue and yellow wagons, bringing them precious tidbits of camp news, teasing their as to how handsome their new masters would be.

  She became a favorite of the caravan. Once or twice mounted warriors of the caravan had accosted her, but on reading her collar had backed grumblingly away, enduring wit
h good humor her jibes and taunts. In the early afternoon, when the caravan halted, she would help Kazrak and me set up our tent and would then gather wood for a fire. She cooked for us, kneeling by the fire, her hair bound back so as not to catch the sparks, her face sweaty and intent on the piece of meat she was most likely burning. After the meal she would clean and polish our gear, sitting on the tent carpet between us, chatting about the small, pleasant inconsequentialities of her day.

  "Slavery apparently agrees with her," I remarked to Kazrak.