Mercenaries of Gor

by Norman, John;

Hurtha then regaled us with his poem, which, truly, seemed to capture something of the inscrutability and ponderousness of the institution which had inspired it. I listened in awe, keeping my attention from time to time, and actually rather often, as my attention wandered, on the so-called Philebus. Boabissia, as I occasionally noted, with an admixture of skepticism and envy, seemed enraptured. Feiqa’s countenance was cheerfully inscrutable. She would not meet my eyes. The so-called Philebus seemed as though he might desire to withdraw from our vicinity now and then, even giving up his place in line, particularly when Hurtha would come to an often-repeated, stirring refrain, but my hand on his collar kept him in his place. I will not attempt to give Hurtha’s poem in its entirety, but I think I may have suggested something of its drift already. I might also mention that it is possible that it might lose something in the reading of it. Poetry, after all, or most poetry, is presumably meant to be heard, not read. It is intended for the ear, not the eye. And certainly the mere reading of it could scarcely convey the impact of hearing it proclaimed in the living voice, and particularly in a voice such as Hurtha’s.

  The line had been moving along rapidly enough, incongruous though this might have seemed, given the thesis of Hurtha’s poem. We were now rather near the checkpoint.

  “You are a Taurentian, are you not?” I asked a fellow in a purple helmet.

  He did not answer me.

  “You are a bit far from Ar, for Taurentians, are you not?” I inquired. We must be at least a day from Ar. It did not seem to make much sense to me that Taurentians, supposedly the palace guard, though they also patrol certain portions of the city, should be this far abroad, particularly in these troubled times.

  He turned away from me, not answering me.

  “A surly fellow,” remarked Hurtha, somewhat offended.

  We were now a few yards from the checkpoint. Only a few feet away, set off from the road a little, on our right, was the impaling pole we had seen from the cart. It was some six inches in diameter. On it was the small body. It had apparently been twisted and jerked until the point of the pole had emerged through the chest. It had then been drawn down the pole better than a yard. I could see some ribs erupted through the tunic. Its limbs were askew, hanging downward. The pole itself was red with blood. Nailed to it were some papers, fluttering in the wind.

  “Wait,” I said.

  “What is it?” asked Boabissia.

  “We know that fellow, do we not?” I asked, looking up to the impaled body.

  Boabissia averted her eyes, sick. Feiqa did not raise her head.

  “He seems familiar,” admitted Hurtha.

  “He should,” I said. “He came with us from Torcadino. He was our fellow passenger for several days.”

  I looked up at the dangling head. The mouth was open. From the upper lip, on either side, the two ends of the mustache dangled back, as the head hung, on the sides of the neck, like two pieces of oiled string.

  “So they have finally caught up with him,” said the fellow before us.

  “Yes,” agreed a man a place or two behind us.

  “Do you know him?” I asked the fellow before us.

  “Of course,” said the man. “He is well known to everyone in Torcadino.”

  “Hold my place,” I said to Hurtha.

  “I do not think any will strive to take it,” said Hurtha, adjusting his ax on his shoulder, cheerfully looking about himself.

  I walked to the side where the pole had been set up. I examined the papers nailed to the pole. They were partly ripped by the wind, and were stained with blood, where the blood had run down the pole.

  “What are you doing there?” said a Taurentian.

  “What was his crime?” I asked.

  “Carrying false papers,” he said.

  “I see,” I said.

  “Return to your place,” said the Taurentian.

  I returned to my place.

  “Do you know that fellow?” I asked the fellow before me, he whom I had treated so harshly.

  “Of course,” he said.

  “It was he who identified you as Ephialtes of Torcadino to me,” I said.

  “I am Philebus of Torcadino,” said the man.

  “Do you know who he is?” I asked.

  “Of course,” he said. “That is your man. That is Ephialtes of Torcadino.”

  “I am sorry for the way in which I treated you,” I said.

  “My bruises rejoice,” said the fellow.

  “I am really sorry,” I said. “I hope I did not hurt your feelings.”

  “My feelings are fine,” he said. “It is only my body which was damaged. It is only that which, as a whole, is in acute misery.”

  “I am really very sorry,” I said.

  “It could have been far worse,” he said. “Think how sorry you would have had to have been, had you broken my neck before you discovered your error.”

  “That is right,” said Hurtha. “There is much to be thankful for.”

  “What were the papers?” asked Boabissia.

  “I shall tell you later,” I said.

  “Next,” said a Taurentian. “You, there, what is your business in Ar?”

  “I am a vintner,” said the fellow before me. “I was put out of Torcadino. I have relatives in Ar. It is my intention to seek caste asylum in Ar.”

  “Have you papers?” asked the Taurentian.

  “I have documents certifying my caste standing,” he said. He then produced some papers from his pack.

  The Taurentian then wrote a notation on the papers and motioned him ahead.

  “I am called Tarl,” I said, stepping forward. “I am from Port Kar, a city neutral to Ar. My friend is Hurtha, an Alar. The free woman is Boabissia, a woman from the Alar camp. The shapely collar slut bearing my pack is mine. I call her Feiqa. We are venturing to Ar on various errands, such as the seeking of our fortunes.” The use of ‘we’ in the sentence, of course, was understood, as is common in Gorean, to refer only to free persons. The collar slut, Feiqa, my lovely slave, was along only as any other animal in such a situation might be along, because her master had brought her along.

  “Have you papers?” asked the man.

  “No,” I said.

  “You have no papers, whatsoever?” asked the man.

  “No,” I said. “We have none whatsoever.”

  He looked at me for a moment, and then he waved us through. Boabissia was shuddering. In a few Ehn we had climbed up through the cart gate and, beyond the checkpoint, were again moving toward Ar.

  As we left the checkpoint it was not toward Ar that I looked but back toward the checkpoint. There I could see people still waiting in line, and other carts coming up to the point. I could also see the twisted, bent body of Ephialtes of Torcadino on the impaling pole, and the flutter of papers nailed to it. I had been a fool. It had been Ephialtes of Torcadino himself who had cleverly directed my attention away from himself, focusing it on an innocent vintner. In a way I had to admire him. It seemed clear to me now that, in asking if I was carrying valuables, he had tricked me into inadvertently betraying their hiding place, by the incipient movement of my hand toward the sheath. Too, he had certainly removed the letters of safety from my sheath with great skill, even replacing the blade. Had I not checked the draw this morning, as is my wont, I might not have known the papers were missing until I had arrived at the checkpoint. I had determined, incidentally, that the deeper papers, the letters, addressed to Ar’s regent, Gnieus Lelius, were still in the sheath. I now had strong, mixed feelings about them. I was now convinced more than ever of their importance, but also of the danger of carrying them. The Taurentians were far from Ar. I suspected that it was their mission, on behalf of some high-placed power in Ar, to sift through refugees and travelers, seeking out those who might be inimical to their interests, or party, in Ar. I now understood more clearly than before why earlier messengers or agents might have failed to make contact with the regent and high general. I was, as I recalled, seemingly not the fi
rst to have been dispatched upon this delicate mission. Doubtless Ephialtes, in possession of the letters of safety, had been mistaken for an agent of Dietrich of Tarnburg. I shuddered. I was pleased that it had been Ephialtes, and not I, who had presented the letters at the checkpoint. Probably, at the demand of the officer, I would have surrendered them. And doubtless, if not there, then somewhere else I might have surrendered them, in some context, or upon some demand, somewhere or another. I smiled bitterly. Letters of safety, indeed! They had not been letters of safety so much, it seemed, as death warrants, or orders for execution, laden with mortal peril for any so bold or foolish as to carry them. I saw the small figure of Ephialtes disappearing now in the distance. He had sought to steal protection but had purloined only death. He had been caught like some tiny insect in a dark and terrible web, one whose existence he had not even suspected.

  “What were the papers nailed to the pole?” asked Boabissia.

  “Our letters of safety,” I told her. Then I turned about to look ahead, down the road. “We will be in Ar tomorrow morning,” I told her. “Perhaps from the night’s camp you will be able to see her lights.”

  “Is Ar a great city?” she asked.

  “Yes,” I said.

  20

  We See the City of Ar

  “When we come over the crest of this hill,” called the driver, “you will see Ar.”

  Boabissia rose from her seat to stand by the front railing of the fee cart. She clutched it with both her hands.

  “Move, move aside,” called the driver to some of the pedestrians on the road.

  The sun was on our left. The hill was steep. There were few wagons drawn up along the road here. If they were halted, it seemed they had chosen to halt on the far side of the hill, where, at rest, they might see the city.

  A woman, with a pack on her back, stumbled, and then regained her feet, hurrying along the side of the road.

  “Ah!” cried Boabissia. “Ohh!”

  More than one of the passengers rose to their feet, standing near the benches.

  The driver halted the fee cart at the crest of the hill.

  I had seen Ar at various times before. Such a sight I was accustomed to. It would not move me, as it might others, the first time to look upon it.

  “Incredible!” said a man.

  “Marvelous!” whispered another.

  I smiled at their childish enthusiasm, at their lack of maturity. Then I rose, too, to my feet. I saw then, in the distance, some four or five pasangs away, the gleaming walls of glorious Ar.

  “I had not realized how vast was the city,” said one of the men.

  “It is large,” said another fellow.

  “There is the Central Cylinder!” said a man, pointing.

  The high, uprearing walls of the city, some hundred feet or more in height, the sun bright upon them, stretched into the distance. They were now white. That had been done, apparently, since the time of Cernus, the usurper, and the restoration of Marlenus, ubar of ubars. It was hard to look at them, for the glare upon them. We could see the great gate, too, and the main road leading to it, the Viktel Aria. Indeed, we ourselves, soon, I thought, would transfer to the Viktel Aria. Within the gamut of those gleaming walls, so lofty and mighty, rose thousands of buildings, and a veritable forest of ascendant towers, of diverse heights and colors. Many of these towers, I knew, were joined by traceries of soaring bridges, set at different levels. These bridges, however, save for tiny glintings here and there, could not be well made out at this distance.

  “I do not think I have ever seen anything so beautiful,” said a man.

  We were looking upon what was doubtless the greatest city of known Gor.

  “I did not know it was like that,” said another man.

  I remembered the great gate. I remembered, long ago, the horde of Pa-Kur. I did not forget the house of Cernus, the Stadium of Tarns, the great tarn, Ubar of the Skies, the racing factions, the Stadium of Blades, the bloodied sands of the arena. I had not forgotten the streets, the baths, the shops, the broad, noble avenues, with their fountains, the narrow, twisting streets, little more than darkened corridors, shielded from the sun, of the lower districts.

  “I have never seen anything like it,” said a man.

  “Nor I,” said another, in awe.

  I gazed down upon the city. In such places came together the complexities and the poverties, the elementalities and the richnesses of the worlds. In such places were to be found the rare, precious habitats of culture, the astonishing, moving delights of art and music, the truths of theater and literature, the glories and allegories of architecture, bespeaking the meanings of peoples, man-made symbols like mountain ranges; in them, too, were to be found iron and silver, and gold and steel, the chairs of finance and the thrones of power. I gazed at the shining city. How startling it seemed. Such places were like magnets to man; they call to him like gilded sirens; they lure him inward to their dazzling wonders, bewitching him with their often so meretricious whispered promises; they were symbols of races. In them were fortunes to be sought, and fortunes to be won, and fortunes to be lost; in them there were crowds, and loneliness; in them success trod the same pavements as failure; in their plazas hope jostled with despair, and meaning ate at the same table with meaninglessness. In such places were perhaps the best and worst that man could do, his past and future, his pain and pleasure, his darkness and light, come together in a single focus.

  “Drinks, cool drinks!” called a woman, selling juices by the side of the road, coming up to the cart. There was a small crowd at the crest of the hill. It was a place where carts, and wagons, and travelers often stopped. In such a place there were coins to be made. She paid no attention to the sight below. Doubtless she had seen it a thousand times. Her eyes were on possible customers.

  “Would you like a drink?” I asked Boabissia.

  “Yes,” she said.

  I purchased her some larma juice for a tarsk bit.

  “Is it cool?” I asked.

  “Yes,” she said. The morning was hot.

  It would have been stored overnight, I assumed, in an amphora, buried to the neck in the cool earth. Sometimes Earth girls, first brought to Gor, do not understand why so many of these two-handled, narrow-necked vessels have such a narrow, usually pointed base, for they cannot stand upright on such a base. They have not yet learned that these vessels are not intended to stand upright. Rather they are commonly fitted into a storage hole, buried there to keep their contents cool, the necks above the earth. The pointed base, of course, presses into the soft earth at the bottom of the storage hole.

  “Bread, meat!” called a fellow, coming up beside the cart. Several of us availed ourselves of his provender. I bought some wedges of Sa-Tarna bread and slices of dried tarsk meat, taking some and giving the rest to Boabissia and Hurtha. I also went to the back of the cart, to the baggage area where I kept Feiqa. I gave her some of my bread and meat. I did not permit her to touch it with her hands, but, reaching between the thick wooden bars, some six inches apart, to where she knelt among the packs and boxes at the back, fed her by hand. “Thank you, Master,” she said.

  I then returned to the front of the cart. Some of the passengers had alighted.

  I regarded again the walls of glorious Ar, shining in the distance.

  “I cannot wait,” said Boabissia, “to claim my patrimony.”

  I nodded. I finished my food.

  “Let us return to the cart!” the driver called to some of the fellows who had alighted. “Let us return to the cart!”

  I looked again at the city in the distance. From here it looked very beautiful. Yet I knew that somewhere within it, perhaps within its crowded quarters, from which mobs might erupt like floods, or within its sheltered patios and gardens, where high ladies might exchange gossip, sip nectars and toy with dainty repasts, served to them by male silk slaves, or among its houses and towers, or on its streets or in the great baths, that somewhere there, somewhere behind those walls, wa
s treason. Somewhere there, within those walls, coiled in the darkness of secrecy, corruption and sedition, like serpents, I was sure, awaited their hour to strike.

  “It is a fine sight,” said a fellow, climbing up through the cart gate, and standing beside me for a moment, to look down on the city.

  “Yes,” I said.

  He returned to his place.

  From where we were, of course, we could not see dirt and crime, or poverty, or hunger. We could not detect pain, misery, and greed. We could not feel loneliness and woe. And yet, for all these things, which so afflict so many of its own, how impressive is the city. How precious it must be, that so many men are willing to pay its price. I wondered why this was, I a voyager and soldier, more fond of the tumultuous sea and the wind-swept field than the street and plaza. Perhaps because it is alive, like drums and trumpets. To be near it or within it, to be stirred by its life, to call its cylinders their own, is for many reward enough.

  The last fellow, climbing up and closing the cart gate behind him, took his seat.

  I did not take my eyes from the city, so splendid before us. Yes, I thought, it is all there, the habitats of culture, the intricate poetries of stone, the incredible places where, their heads among clouds, common bricks have been taught to speak and sing, the meanings uttered scarcely understood by those who walk amongst them; yes, it is all there, in them, in the cities, I thought; in them were dirt and crime, iron and silver, gold and steel; in them were perfume and silk, and whips and chains; in them were love and lust; in them were mastery and submission, the owning and the helplessly being owned; in them were intrigue and greed, nobility and honor, deceit and treachery, the exalted and the base, the strong and the weak. In such places, filthy, and crowded and frail, are found the fortresses of man. They are castles and prisons, arenas and troves; they are cities; they are the citadels of civilization.

  The driver called to his tharlarion and shook the reins. “Ahead!” he called to the beast. “Move!”

  I returned to my seat, the cart beginning to move.

  “You have seen Ar before?” said a man.