Norman, John - Gor 23 - Renegades of Gor.txt

by Renegades of Gor [lit]

  canvases had been thrown over places on certain of the ships, at the stern, and

  on the (pg.351) side of the bows, where one might be accustomed to look for a

  name.

  On the way back, along the pier, I stopped by one of the unidentified ships, one

  wharfed adjacent to the Tais, the flagship. Indeed, it had been the second ship

  into the harbor, and the one that had rammed the Cosian ship amidships.

  “You wonder where these ships are from?” asked a fellow near me, a fellow from

  Ar’s Station, on the pier.

  “Yes,” I said. “I am curious.”

  “This ship here,” he said, “is the Tina, out of Victoria. I have seen it often

  enough on patrols.”

  “That is interesting,” I said. Victoria, of course, was the headquarters of the

  Vosk League.

  “You must understand, of course,” said the fellow, “that I do not know that.”

  “I understand,” I said.

  A tall, dark-haired fellow was on the ship, near the bow. He carried himself as

  one of natural authority, but he wore no uniform, no insignia. His men I

  gathered, knew well enough who he was, and others need not know. He had noted us

  standing on the pier, near the bow. It was there that one of the cloaks of

  canvas had been placed, perhaps to conceal a name. One was similarly placed on

  the other side of the bow.

  “Tal,” said he to us.

  “Tal,” said I to him. “If I were to remove this canvas would I see the name

  Tina?”

  The fellow on board looked sharply at the man with me. Apparently he knew him

  from somewhere. Certainly the fellow with me had seemed to have no difficulty in

  identifying the moored vessel. “Vitruvius?” he asked.

  “He can be trusted,” said the man with me. This trust, I gathered, I had earned

  on the wall, at the gate, on the walkway. Too, I think there was little truly

  secret about this ship, or the others.”

  “Do as you wish,” said the fellow on board.

  I lifted up the canvas a bit, and then let it drop back, in place. I had read

  there, in archaic script, the name ‘Tina’.

  “Your ship, then,” I said to the fellow on board, “is indeed the Tina.”

  “There are doubtless many ships with that name,” said the fellow, smiling.

  (pg.352) “And what is the port of registry of your ship?” I asked.

  “It is registered west of here,” he grinned.

  “Victoria?” I asked.

  “Or Fina, or somewhere,” he said.

  “Surely these ships with you, those surprisingly flying no colors, are not of

  the Vosk League.”

  “We are an innocent trading fleet,” he said.

  “One Cosian ship has been destroyed in the harbor,” I said, “and another has

  been disabled.”

  “Yes,” he said. “It seems two regrettable accidents occurred in the harbor.”

  “You are embarking women and children,” I said.

  “Passengers,” he said.

  “Some may think these are ships of the Vosk League,” I said.

  “What do you think, Vitruvius?” asked the fellow, leaning on the rail.

  “It seems to me unlikely that these could be ships of the Vosk League,” said the

  fellow beside me, “for the Vosk League, as is well known, is neutral. Does it

  not seem unlikely to you, as well?”

  “Yes,” said the man on the ship, “It seems quite unlikely to me, as well.”

  “What is your name?’ I asked the fellow on the ship.

  “What is yours?” he asked.

  “Tarl,” I said.

  “That is a common name,” he said.

  “Yes,” I said, “especially in the north.”

  “My name, too, is a common one,” he said, “especially west, on the river.”

  “What is it?” I asked.

  “Jason,” said he.

  “Of what town?” I asked.

  “The same which serves as the home port of my ship,” he said.

  “West of here?” I said.

  “Yes,” he said.

  “Victoria?” I asked.

  “Or Fina, or somewhere,” he said.

  “I wish you well,” I said.

  “I wish you well,” he said.

  (pg.353) Women and children, and now men, were being taken aboard this vessel as

  well. Turning about, looking back to my left, toward the flagship, I saw

  Aemilianus being carried aboard. Some tarnsmen flew overhead, but none fired

  downward.

  I watched the piers being emptied, women and children, and men, of Ar’s Station,

  embarking.

  I then saw, a rope on her neck, her hands thonged behind her back, still veiled,

  still clad in the provocative rages which had been those of the former Lady

  Publia, Lady Claudia. She had been caught among the crowds of women and children

  on the pier, perhaps noted by the wounded Marsias, or one of the others who had

  been with us in the cell, or perhaps by others still, alerted by one or the

  other of them, as to her probable disguise. The Cosians had not come to the

  piers. She had not received her opportunity to surrender herself to them,

  begging from them the desperate boon and privilege of reduction to absolute

  slavery. Among others boarding the flagship, too, in her improvised hood, naked,

  her hands, too, thonged behind her back, as I had fastened them earlier, being

  pulled on her leash by one free woman, being herded from behind, poked and

  jabbed, and struck, with a stick by another, stumbling, ascending the narrow

  plank to the flagship, was a slave, one who had once been Lady Publia of Ar’s

  Station.

  I saw her lose her footing once on the plank and fall, belly downward on it, her

  legs on either side of it. She must have been utterly terrified, in the darkness

  of the hood, helpless, unable even to cry out. The first woman tugged at the

  leash. The other beat her with the stick. She struggled to her feet, and then,

  obedient to the leash, and trying to hurry before the cruel incitements of the

  stick, she ascended the plank. Female slaves are seldom left in any doubt on Gor

  that they are slaves, and particularly when they are in the keeping of free

  women. I saw two of the oarsmen lift her from the height of the plank, down,

  between the thwarts, and then place her kneeling, behind them, amidships, on the

  deck. Other slaves already knelt there. Too, in that place, kneeling, too, a

  neck rope dangling before her, but in no one’s keeping, knelt Lady Claudia.

  The two free women who had had the former lady Publia (pg.354) in their care

  were courteously directed forward, where, before and about the stern castle and

  even on the small bow deck, were gathered several woman and children. These,

  already, were being fed ships’ rations. Four or five ships, crowded with

  passengers, had come and gone more than once at the piers. These were ferrying

  passengers to the ships lying at anchor in the harbor. Then they themselves

  retained their last loads of passenge
rs and, too, drawn away from the piers, out

  in the harbor, rode at anchor. Many other passengers had boarded the ship which

  had remained wharfed, such as the Tina and Tais. The various ships were now

  crowded with the men, women and children of Ar’s Station. I doubted that any one

  of them now held less than a hundred passengers.

  It must be remembered, too, that these were river galleys and, on the whole,

  smaller than the galleys of Thassa. Too, the river galley, for those whom it

  might interest, is normally shorted masted than a Thassa galley, seldom has more

  than one mast, and seldom carried the varieties of sails, changed on the yard

  according to wind conditions, that are carried by a Thassa galley. River

  galleys, also, as would be expected, seldom carry more than twenty oars to a

  side, and are almost always single-banked.

  Fifteen ships, mostly of Port Cos, were now at the piers, which, now, except for

  armed men, were mostly empty. I heard a battle horn sound, from the stern castle

  of the Tais. It was, I gathered, the recall. In orderly fashion, unchallenged,

  the numerous soldiers, guardsmen, armed oarsmen and such who had lined the inner

  side of the piers, facing the inner harbor, withdrew to the fifteen waiting

  ships. Many clambered over the sides. Others made use of various planks and

  gangplanks.

  On some of the ships now there was scarcely room for the oarsmen to ply their

  levers. Water lapped high on the hulls; the rams were now at least a yard under

  the water; even the lower tips of their shearing blades were submerged. Mariners

  of some ships freed the mooring lines of others, and then their own, and then

  boarded, some of them using the lines themselves to regain the decks. Several of

  the ships then departed from the piers, pushing off with the three traditional

  poles. Among these was the ship called the Tina.

  I looked out into the harbor.

  (pg.355) I saw some of the ships there drawing up their anchors, generally two,

  one at the bow, one at the stern, and putting about, those that had faced the

  piers. The huge, painted eyes of these ships were then turning north, toward the

  mighty Vosk. The eyes of the other ships out in the harbor, those which had had

  the task of ferrying out passengers, already faced north. Such eyes are common

  on Gorean ships. How else, some mariners inquire, could she see her way? To the

  Gorean mariner, as to many who have followed the ways of the sea, learning her,

  fearing her, loving her, the ship is more than an engineered structure of iron

  and wood. It is more than tackle and blocks, beams and planks, canvas and

  calking. There is an indefinability and preciousness about her, a mystique which

  informs her, an exceeding of what is seen, a nature and wondrous mystery, like

  that of a companion and lover, a creature and friend. Though I have seldom heard

  them speak explicitly of this, particularly when landsmen are present, many

  Gorean mariners seem to believe that the ship is in some way alive. This is

  supposed to occur when the eyes have been painted. It is then, some say, that

  she comes alive, when she can see. I suppose this may be regarded as

  superstition; on the other hand, it may also be regarded as love.

  The ships in the outer harbor which had been facing north now, too, drew up

  their anchors.

  I looked back toward the landing and the citadel in the distance, across the

  inner harbor. I could see the remains of walkway from where I was. The citadel

  was burning.

  I looked back to the harbor.

  The first of the ships was now moving toward the river. others were following

  her, in line.

  Once again I looked back toward the citadel.

  Smoke drifted out to the piers, too, from the city itself. Those fires, I

  supposed, might burn for two or three days yet.

  I looked at the walkway. It had been a good fight, the fight that had been

  fought here. I did not think that those of either Cos or Ar’s Station had cause

  to regret what had been done there. Glory is its own victory.

  The last ships at the piers, one by one, began to depart their wharfage. I could

  see the water fall from the lifted oar blades into the harbor. Only the Tais,

  then, remained at the wharf.

  (pg.356) “Captain?” said a voice. It was that of the young crossbowman.

  His friend was with him.

  They cast off the mooring lines and then followed me aboard. After our boarding

  the plank was drawn back, over the rail. Three mariners, managing the long

  poles, thrust the Tais from the pier.

  “Out oars!” I heard the oar master call.

  21 The River

  (pg.357) “Let the first of the two females be fetched,” said Aemilianus.

  It was now the middle of the morning, following yesterday’s late-afternoon

  action at the piers.

  The Tais moved with the current west on the Vosk. She led the main body of the

  flotilla westward. Ahead of us, in oblique formation, barely discernible, were

  four smaller galleys. These formed, as it were, an advance guard. Similarly,

  behind the main body of the flotilla, bringing up the rear, back a pasang or so,

  flying no colors, their markings concealed, were two galleys. One of these was

  the ship to whose captain I had spoken earlier, the Tina.

  “Yes, Commander,” said a man.

  Aemilianus sat on the deck, rather before the steps leading up to the helm deck

  and, above that, to the height of the stern castle, leading against a backrest

  of canvas and rope. Calliodorus of Port Cos, his friend, stood near him. beside

  him, too, stood his aide, Surilius. Marsias, too, and the fellows whom I had

  encountered in the cell earlier, and who had fought with us on the walkway, were

  there, too. The grizzled fellow, too, had asked to be present. These were

  wounded. Marsias and one other fellow were lying on pallets. The others of the

  wounded sat on the deck. The young man, Marcus, was there, too. It was he who

  had made it through to Port Cos and returned with the ships which had made

  possible the evacuation from the piers. Now, in spite of his youth, he (pg.358)

  stood high in these councils, those of the survivors of Ar’s Station. Many

  others were there, too, several of whom had fought with me on the wall and

  elsewhere. Among them were the two young fellows who had served me so well on

  the wall, as my messengers, and had served well later, too, on the landing.

  Those who stood with us here, I gathered, stood high among the survivors of Ar’s

  Station.

  I looked about myself.

  It was remarkable to see the difference in the fellows from Ar’s Station, now

  that they had had some food and a decent night’s sleep, though only stretched

  out on the crowded deck of a galley. It had been perhaps the first night’s sleep

  many of them had had in weeks, not disrupted by watches or alarms.

  The “first of the two females” had not yet been fetched. They were arranging a

  special chaining for her. This would be the one in the improvised hood. I had

  had her hood pushed up yesterday evening and early this morning, though at

  neither time in such a way as to uncover her eyes, and, after havi
ng had her

  warned to silence, had had her gag removed, and had had her fed and watered.

  Though she would know that she was on a galley and moving with the current on

  the Vosk, thus west, she had no real idea as to where she was or what was to be

  done with her. She was being kept with other women, also ordered to silence,

  who, with one exception, were slaves. The voices she had heard about her, for

  the most part, naturally enough, given the crew of the Tais, would have had

  Cosians accents, or accents akin to them.

  Yesterday afternoon, shortly after we had cleared the harbor at Ar’s Station, I

  had drawn the mask of Marsias from my features, and had shaken my head, glad to

  feel the air of the Vosk about me, so fresh and clear.

  “I thought it was you,” had said Aemilianus, weakly. “It had to be you. your

  escape and that of the heinous traitress, Lady Claudia, became generally known

  after the recall of the troops from the citadel, in the retreat to the landing.

  We were informed of it by the good Marsias, and his fellow guardsmen. Too, there

  was no sword like yours in Ar’s Station.”

  “You might perhaps have joined with those of Cos,” had said a fellow, “in the

  fighting. Why did you not do so?

  “The wall needed defending,” I has said. “One thing led to another.”

  (pg.359) “Ad you not held the wall as long as you did,” had said Aemilianus.

  “And had you not further delayed Cos at the gate, and on the walkway, the day

  would have been finished long before the arrival of Calliodorus.”

  Several men had assented to this.

  “It was nothing,” I had said.

  Back by the port side of the stairs leading to the helm deck, a few feet from

  where Aemilianus sat, knelt Shirley, his beautiful blond slave. No longer was

  she so pale and drawn as before. Now she was considerably freshened by rest and

  food. Her blond hair which had been closely cropped, if not shaved, early in the

  siege of Ar’s Station was now growing out. And, already, with the rest and food,

  her beauty gave hints of returning to a voluptuousness that brings high prices

  on a slave block, and can drive a master half mad with passion. Too, looking at

  her, I realized that Aemilianus, too, must be feeling much better, and much

  stronger. She was in chains. Though the girl loves the master with all her heart