by John Norman
Suddenly the ship shook with a great impact. “We have been rammed!” cried the Voskjard. “It is the ship which sheared your starboard oars,” I told him. “She flies, as I now see, the colors of Turmus.”
“We shall sink!” cried the Voskjard. “Not immediately,” I told him. I stood up, the bound Voskjard between my feet. “They are preparing to board, as I see,” I said. “Surrender me to the men of Turmus,” he begged. I, with the sword, then cut his garments from him. He was then naked between my feet. “You are my prisoner,” I told him. From the straps of his sword belt I improvised a short leash for him. “Do not permit me to fall into the hands of those of Victoria!” he begged.
“You would have sacked their town. You have seen them fight,” I said. “Keep me from the men of Victoria,” he begged. “They are boarding now, many of them, the fellows of Turmus,” I observed. “Give me to them,” he begged.
“On your feet, Sleen,” I told him. I dragged him to his feet by the leash. “Give me to the men of Turmus!” he begged. “And let them cheat me of my prisoner?” I asked. “Who are you?” he asked, frightened. “Jason,” I told him, “Jason-of Victoria.”
“No!” he cried. I then threw him from the lofty stern castle of Spined Tharlarion, bound, into the water. I then thrust my hand through the wrist sling of the sword and, seizing it, withdrew it from the wood. I waved to the fellows of Turmus, swarming onto the already listing deck of Spined Tharlarion. I then, feet first, leaped downward into the water, landing near the floundering Ragnar Voskjard. In a moment I had my hand on the short leash I had devised for his throat and, he on his back, helpless, my prisoner, was towing him toward the flagship of Policrates.
The battle, I gathered, was muchly over.
The Voskjard grunted, and half choked, as I hauled him, partly by the neck leash, partly by his arm, over the rail of the flagship of Policrates. I threw him on his belly, on the listing, awash deck, at my feet. The flagship of Policrates seemed deserted. She had been rammed. I did not think she would stay long afloat.
The waters off the Victoria wharves seemed crowded, but many of the ships were aflame.
The alarm bar was ringing in Victoria, but now in token of victory. There were crowds upon the concourse. Garlanded, white-clad maidens could be seen. At the front edge of the concourse, near the wharves, pirates, in rows, stripped and bound, lay on their bellies. Maidens cast flowers upon them, and some of these maidens, from their own heads, placed garlands upon the brows of the victors.
Ragnar Voskjard tried to rise, but my foot, thrust between his shoulder blades, pressed him rudely back to the deck. “Free me,” he begged. “Be silent,” I said. I then stood with my left foot on his back, holding him in place. I had thought that I had heard a noise. I then dragged him, half strangling him, up the sloping deck to the starboard rail, where, with a swift knot, I tied him to one of the uprights supporting the rail. He turned on his side, to regard me. “If the ship sinks,” he said, hoarsely, “I am helpless.”
“Yes,” I said.
I turned about.
Forty feet away, down the deck, amidships, sword in hand, half crouching, blade ready, slowly approaching, I saw Kliomenes.
“You must have hidden,” I told him, “perhaps in the lower hold. Then, when the ship was rammed, when the hold began to fill with water, you were forced upward, as an urt.”
He continued to approach. I observed the point of the blade. The eyes of a man can lie. The point of the blade cannot.
“Where are Policrates and Callisthenes?” I asked.
“I do not know,” he said.
“Free me. Free me!” cried Ragnar Voskjard.
“It is every man for himself,” said Kliomenes. He then rushed fiercely upon me. I defended myself in four exchanges. Then he stepped back.
“Do not permit your arm to grow weary,” I told him. “Perhaps you would give me your tunic,” I said. “I do not wish to become chilled. The air on the river is cooler now.”
With a cry of rage he again rushed upon me and, again, I merely defended myself.
Sometimes we were ankle-deep in the water on the deck and, sometimes, near the port rail, we fought in water to our knees. Twice he slipped, but I did not strike him.
Then he stood, knee deep in the water, soaked, gasping. “Remove your tunic,” I told him.
With two hands holding the sword he stumbled toward me, exhausted, striking downward. I slipped to the side and my blade’s point was then entered into his right side. He shuddered, bent over, his head over the water. “Discard your blade,” I told him. He released the weapon. I stepped back, my blade ready. “Go to the starboard rail,” I told him.
He waded to the starboard rail, and I followed him. A single stroke could have severed his spine.
“Kneel down,” I told him, “facing me.”
He did so.
“Remove your tunic,” I told him.
He did so.
“You are my prisoner,” I said.
“Don’t strike me,” he suddenly said.
“Perhaps, perhaps not,” I said. “Turn about,” I ordered him.
Frightened, he did so.
“Will I strike you?” I asked him.
“I do not know,” he said.
“On your belly,” I told him, “and place your hands, crossed, behind you.”
He did this. “Will I strike you now?” I asked him.
“I do not know. I do not know!” he said.
I thrust the sword into the deck. “I have placed the sword in the deck,” I told Kliomenes. “If you wish to attempt to escape, this would be an excellent time to do so.” Kliomenes tensed. “You must consider such things as whether or not, should you do this, you could rise to your feet before I could, say break your neck or back, or take the sword and cut your head away. I leave such speculations, and decisions, to you.”
Kliomenes moaned, and lay still. I picked up the tunic from the deck and, unhurriedly, tore some strips from it. I looked over the port rail. It was considerably lower now, given the listing of the ship, than the starboard rail. “I see that the fellows from Turmus have drawn away from Spined Tharlarion,” I informed them. I threw the strips, torn from the bottom of the tunic onto Kliomenes. “Those are what I am going to bind you with,” I told him. “They will be quite sufficient to hold you. Once you are bound with them you will have little opportunity for escape. I am now going to put on your tunic.” I slipped the tunic over my head. Kliomenes lay quietly, trembling. He did not move. I laughed, and then knelt across his body.
“Listen closely, Kliomenes,” I told him. “You will be able to hear, from the wharves at Victoria, the ringing of a hammer, pounding on iron, on an anvil. Do you hear it?”
“Yes,” he said. “They are curving collars of iron, with chains attached, about the throats of your fellow pirates.” He was silent. “Such collars are heavy and uncomfortable,” I said. “I know. I have worn such collars. There is this to be said for them, however. They hold a man, perfectly.” I then, with the strips of cloth torn from the tunic, bound Kliomenes’ hands behind his back, tightly. He winced. “Are you bound well enough?” I asked. “Yes,” he said. “Do you think such bonds will hold you?” I asked. “Yes!” he said. “Yes, what?” I asked. “Yes,” he whispered, “-my captor.”
I laughed, and stood up. “_Spined Tharlarion_ has gone down,” I said. At that moment the deck of the flagship of Policrates gave a lurch in the water. I almost lost my footing. Kliomenes slid downward, toward the port rail. I seized him by the hair and pulled him again toward the starboard rail.
“We are sinking!” cried Ragnar Voskjard. He tried to free himself, but succeeded in doing little more than squirm choking on the deck, a stripped, tethered prisoner. I then freed his leash from the upright but then, to his dismay, passed it again about the upright and, holding Kliomenes’ head close to the upright, fastened him to the other end of the leash. Both men, then, were tied by the neck, and closely together, about the stanchion.
“Mercy, mercy!” cried the Voskjard. “Mercy!” cried Kliomenes, suddenly terrified, pulling his legs up, as water lapped about them. I stood by the rail. “Do you both beg for mercy?” I asked. “Yes, my captor!” cried Ragnar Voskjard. “Yes, my captor!” cried Kliomenes.
“Greetings,” I called down, cheerily, to Callimachus and Tasdron, in a longboat, with other men, which had drawn alongside. The approach of the longboat had been visible to me, of course, for some time, from my standing position by the rail. It had not been visible, of course, to either Ragnar Voskjard or Kliomenes.
“Did I hear someone beg for mercy?” grinned Callimachus, looking upward.
“It is not impossible,” I admitted.
“What have you up there?” he asked.
“A pair of neck-harnessed urts,” I told him. “Do you think you might find collars for them?”
“Ashore,” said Callimachus. “We will put them with the rest of the catch.”
With the sword blade I slashed the strap that bound the two men about the stanchion. Then I pulled them to their feet and knotted together the two loose ends of the strap, thus again effectively putting them on a common leash. I then thrust them overboard, headfirst, into the arms of oarsmen who took them and, not gently, threw them to the bottom of the longboat.
I looked down into the longboat. “I see that you have found a tunic somewhere,” I said.
“Policrates was kind enough to give me his,” said Callimachus, gesturing to the floor of the longboat, near the bow. I grinned. There, lying together, stripped, bloody and trussed, were Policrates and Callisthenes.
“Will they live?” I asked Callimachus.
“I did not make their wounds lethal,” said Callimachus. “Thus they may be saved for the quarries or the galleys.”
I did not envy Policrates or Callisthenes, nor Kliomenes, nor Ragnar Voskjard. In the quarries and on the galleys the chains are heavy and the whips are swift.
“Come aboard,” said Callimachus. He extended his hand to me. I slipped over the rail of the flagship of Policrates, and entered the longboat.
“The day is ours,” I said.
“It is ours,” said Callimachus. We embraced. I took my position on a thwart amidships, between two oarsmen, and he took his place on a thwart near the stern, before the helmsman. “Put in to shore,” said Callimachus to the helmsman. “Yes, Captain,” said he.
The oars entered the water. The bow turned toward Victoria. There the alarm bar was ringing in victory. I could hear, too, the shouting of crowds and the singing of maidens. Looking aft I saw the flagship of Policrates subside beneath the surface of the river. The drag of its subsidence pulled momentarily against the headway of the longboat and then, after churning ripples, the narrow, shallow-drafted ship gone, the waters were smooth. I looked to the bottom of the longboat. There, naked and bound, at our feet, lay our enemies. I could hear, too, from the wharves of Victoria, the ringing of the hammer, closing links of chain and curving collars of iron about the throats of helpless pirates. I lifted my head, and looked ahead. Victoria lay ahead. I was pleased.
Chapter 17 - THE COIN GIRL; I DISMISS HER
It is called the Street of the Writhing Slave. It is dark and narrow, and not far from the wharves. It has its name from the fact that most renters of, and dealers in, Coin Girls in Victoria, keep their kennels on this street. The girls of the day, designated by a coiled whip pressed against their left shoulder, wearing their neck chains, with the attached bell and coin box, are sent into the streets in the late afternoon and expected to return before the nineteenth Ahn. And woe to the girl who does not return with a jangling coin box on her neck chain!
Some girls, once designated, and locked in their accouterments, kneeling, weeping, scratch even at the insides of the stout gates of their masters’ houses, hoping to be sent into the streets early, that their chances of turning a profit for their master, and thus avoiding a beating or torture, may be enhanced. Such a lenience, however, is seldom shown to the girls, as it is against an agreement binding the entrepreneurs engaged in this trade.
Sometimes the girls are sent into the streets with their hands braceleted behind their backs. Sometimes they are sent into the streets with their small hands free, that they may use them to please their master’s customers. Sometimes a new girl is sent into the streets on a leash, with an older girl, that she may learn how a Coin Girl behaves.
I recalled that once, long ago, when I had purchased, and freed, Miss Henderson, we had encountered a Coin Girl on the way back to my inn. “Get away, you filthy thing,” had said Miss Henderson. “Disgusting! Disgusting! Terrible! Disgusting!” she had said. I smiled. The girl had been half naked, in a brown rag. I had thought she had been superb. To be sure, Coin Girls are usually regarded as the lowest form of Gorean street slave.
I continued to walk up the Street of the Writhing Slave. Such girls, now, as it was late, past the nineteenth Ahn, would surely, at least for the most part, be chained in their basement kennels, lying on their straw mats, trying to sleep, clutching their thin blankets about their nude bodies.
The Street of the Writhing Slave winds tortuously upward from the wharves, threading its narrow way through a commercial district upward towards a hilly residential district. Free women, incidentally, tend to avoid the Street of the Writhing Slave. It frightens them, it seems, to walk upon it. I supposed I could not blame them. What free woman would dare to walk upon such a street, particularly at night? Her throat might suddenly feel the capture loop of a slaver and, by morning, branded, gag-hooded and chained, she might be fifty pasangs downriver, on her way to a market in Ven or Turmus.
By putting out my hands I could almost touch the walls of the facing houses.
I thought I heard the sound of a bell. I smiled. It was late, of course, for the sensuous peregrinations of a Coin Girl. Would they not all, now, be secured in their kennels, safe even from fruitless dreams of escape?
I continued on my way. The street was twisting. I could not see far ahead. I heard again the bell. I smiled.
I paused, near a tiny tharlarion-oil lamp. It was about a yard above my head, recessed in a small niche. It was by means of such that the street was lit. Families alternate in the fueling and tending of such lamps. As in many such matters, as in cleaning and repairing streets, Gorean responsibility tends to devolve on the individual and not on the polity. His taxes, in this sense, in such matters, are applied directly, and by himself, to the affairs with which they are concerned. Third parties, thus, in such matters, are not involved, and he knows precisely, at least in such instances, how much money is involved, and where it is being spent.
I heard the bell again. Again I smiled. I then proceeded further, climbing, up the street. Through the soles of my sandals I could feel, clearly, the street’s harsh, rude cobblestones. I was pleased by this.
I turned a corner in the street, and it was then that I saw them, some fifty yards away, approaching, descending, nearing the location of one of the small tharlarion-oil lamps. Near the lamp the girl who was on the leash was jerked up short. I heard the flattish bell on her neck chain. It has a distinctive note. Then she stood still. She must stand in the light of the lamp, to await my approach. Both girls wore brief slave tunics. Both were barefoot. My step was casual, unhurried. It did not even seem, then, that I saw them. I might be anyone, returning late, say, from a tavern or from the visiting of friends. The meeting, surely, was one of mere chance.
“Oh,” I said, pausing, stopping, suddenly, a few yards from them. It seemed that I, lost in thought, had just then noticed them. I regarded them. It seemed then that I looked at the leashed girl intently, as though trying to place her, at the distance, in the light, and then I reacted, as though I might then have placed her, or feared that I might have placed her, feared, dismayed, that I migh
t have recognized who she might be. Swiftly she put her head down, hiding her face in her hands. This made a note sound from the bell. An abrupt command was spoken to her by her fair companion, and she quickly put her hands down, at her sides. Another command was spoken, and the leash jerked taut. She lifted her head. I approached her. Tears were in her eyes. Her lower lip trembled.
I regarded her, in the yellowish, flickering light of the tiny tharlarion-oil lamp, late at night, on the rude stones of that dark, narrow street in Victoria. She stood before me, small, slim, exquisite, beautiful. Her binding-fiber-belted, wraparound tunic was brown, and of clinging, thin rep-cloth; it was sleeveless and had a plunging neckline; it was slave short. About her neck there was a chain. From the chain there hung two objects; the first was a narrow, bronze bell, flatish and tapering, with a fiat top and ring; when she moved it would sound, calling attention to her whereabouts; the second was a metal coin box, which contained a slot for the deposition of coins; the coin box was locked. I had not heard coins sound, from within the coin box.
Too, about her neck, under the chain, with its dangling articles, there was a high, tight leather collar. Her leash, in the hands of the other girl, was attached to a ring at the back of this collar. The leash, too, was of leather, and long. It was coiled four or five times in the hands of the other girl. More Gorean leashes are long. There are two advantages to the long leash. It may be used, if one wishes, to bind the slave, and its long end, if one wishes, may easily serve as a whipping strap.
“Beverly,” I whispered. “Is it you?”
She did not respond. Her eyes were filled with tears. Her lip trembled.
The girl who held her leash then jerked twice on the leash.
“May I serve your pleasure, Master?” asked the leashed girl.
“I thought you were a Coin Girl,” I said.
“She is a Coin Girl,” said the girl who held her leash. Then she jerked the leash once, against the collar ring.
