Raiders of Gor coc-6

by John Norman

  He lay there on his back, blood moving from his mouth, the chest of his tunic scarlet, fighting for breath.

  I looked down on him. I had been of the warriors. I knew he would not live long. I felt no compunction. He was totally evil.

  I went to the slave girl and cut the binding fiber that fastened her ankles and wrists. The chains which she had worn while serving paga, and when she had asked for my protection, had been removed, doubtless while she had been in the alcove, sometime after I had left the tavern, that she might have better rendered Surbus, Captain of Port Kar, the dues of the slave girl. They had been serving bracelets, with two lengths of chain, each about a foot long, which linked them. I looked about the room. The proprietor stood back, behind his counter. None of the men had arisen from the tables, though many were of the crew of Surbus himself.

  I looked at him.

  His eyes were on me, and his hand, weakly, lifted. His eyes were agonized. He coughed blood. He seemed to want to speak, but could not do so.

  I looked away from him.

  I resheathed the blade.

  It was good that Surbus lay dying. He was evil.

  I looked upon the slave girl. She was a poor sort. She was scrawny, and thin faced, with narrow shoulders. Her blue eyes were pale. The hair was thin, stringy. She was my poor slave.

  To my surprise she went and knelt next to Surbus, and held his head. He was looking at me. Again he tried to speak.

  "Please," said the girl to me, looking up at me, holding he head of the dying man.

  I looked upon them both, puzzled. He was evil. She, perhaps, was mad. Did she not understand that he would have hurled her bound to the urts in the canals? His hand lifted again, even more weakly, extended to me. There was agony in his eyes. His lips moved, but there was no sound.

  The girl looked up at me and said, "Please, I am too weak."

  "What does he want?" I asked, impatient. He was pirate, slaver, thief, murderer. He was evil, totally evil, and I felt for him only disgust.

  "He wants to see the sea," she said.

  I said nothing.

  "Please," she said, "I am too weak."

  I bent and put the arm of the dying man about my shoulders and, lifting him, with the girl's help, went back through the kitchen of the tavern and, one by one, climbed the high, narrow stairs to the top of the building.

  We came to the roof, and there, near its edge, holding Surbus between us, we waited. The morning was cold, and damp. It was about daybreak.

  And then the dawn came and, over the buildings of Port Kar, beyond them, and beyond the shallow, muddy Tamber, where the Vosk empties, we saw, I for the first time, gleaming Thassa, the Sea.

  The right hand of Surbus reached across his body and touched me. He nodded his head. HIs eyes did not seem pained to me, nor unhappy. His lips moved, but then he coughed, and there was more blood, and he stiffened, and then, his head falling to one side, he was only weight in our arms.

  We lowered him to the roof.

  "What did he say?" I asked.

  The girl smiled at me. "Thank you," she said. "He said Thank you."

  I stood up wearily, and looked out over the sea, gleaming Thassa.

  "She is very beautiful," I said.

  "Yes," said the girl, "yes."

  "Do the men of Port Kar love the sea?" I asked.

  "Yes," said said, "they do."

  I looked on her.

  "What will you do now?" I asked. "Where will you go?"

  "I do not know," she said. She dropped her head. "I will go away."

  I put out my hand and touched her cheek. "Do not do that," I said. "Follow me." There were tears in her eyes. "Thank you," she said.

  "what is your name?" I asked.

  "Luma," she said.

  I, followed by the slave Luma, left the roof, descended the long, narrow stairs. In the kitched we met the proprietor. "Surbus is dead," I told him. He nodded. The body, I knew, would be disposed of in the canals.

  I pointed to Luma's collar. "Key," I said.

  The proprietor brought a key and removed his steel from her throat. She fingered her throat, now bare, perhaps for the first time in years, of the encircling collar.

  I would buy her another, when it was convenient, suitably engraved, proclaiming her mine.

  We left the kitchen.

  In the large central room of the tavern, we stopped.

  I thrust the girl behind me.

  There, waiting for us, standing, armed, were seventy or eighty men. They were seamen of Port Kar. I recognized many of them. They had come with Surbus to the tavern the night before. They were portions of his crews.

  I unsheathed my blade.

  One of the men stood forward, a tall man, lean, young, but with a face that showed the marks of Thassa. He had gray eyes, large, rope-rough hands. "I am Tab," he said. "I was second to Surbus."

  I said nothing, but watched them.

  "You let him see the sea?" said Tab.

  "Yes," I said.

  "Then," said Tab, "we are your men."

  10 The Council of Captains

  I took my sea in the Council of the Captains of Port Kar.

  It was now near the end of the first passage hand, that the following En'Kara, in which occurs the Spring Equinox. The Spring Equinox, in Port Kar as well as in most other Gorean cities, marks the New Year. In the chronology of Ar it was now the year 10,120. I had been in Port Kar for some seven Gorean months. None had disputed my right to the seat of Surbus. His men had declared themselves mine.

  Accordingly I, who had been Tarl Cabot, once a warrior of Ko-ro-ba, the Towers of the Morning, sat now in the council of these captains, merchant and pirate princes, the high oligarchs of squalid, malignant Port kar, Scourge of Gleaming Thassa.

  In the council, in effect, was vested the stability and administration of Port Kar.

  Above it, nominally, stood five Ubars, each refusing to recognize the authority of the others, Chung, Eteocles, Nigel, Sullius Maximus and Henrius Sevarius, claiming to be the fifth of his line.

  The Ubars were represented on the council, to which they belonged as being themselves Captains, by five empty thrones, sitting before the semicircles of curule chairs on which reposed the captains. Beside each empty throne there was a stool from which a Scribe, speaking in the name of the Ubar, participated in the proceedings of the council. The Ubars themselves remained aloof, seldom showing themselves for fear of assassination.

  A scribe, at a large table before the five thrones, was droning the record of the last meeting of the council.

  There are commonly about one hundred and twenty captains who form the council, sometimes a few more, sometimes a few less.

  Admittance to the council is based on being master of at least five ships. Surbus had not been a particularly important captain, but he had been the master of a fleet of seven, now mine. These five ships, pertinent to council membership, may be either the round ships, with deep holds of rmerchandise, or the long ships, ram-ships, ships of war. Both are predominantly oared vessels, but the round ship carries a heavier, permanent rigging, and supports more sail, being generally two-masted. The round ship, of course, is not round, but it does have a much wider beam to its length of keel, say, about one to six, whereas the ratios of the war galleys are about one to eight.

  The five ships, it might be added, must be of at least medium class. In a round ship this means she would be able, in Earth figures, to freight between approximately one hundred and one hundred and fifty tons below decks. I have calculated this figure from the Weight, a Gorean unit of measurement based on the Stone, which is about four earth pounds. A Weight in ten Stone. A medium-class round ship should be able to carry from 5,000 to 7,500 Gorean Weight. The Weight and the Stone, incidentally, are standardized throughout the Gorean cities by Merchant Law, the only common body of law existing among the cities. The official "Stone," actually a solid metal cylinder, is kept, by the way, near the Sardar. Four timea a year, on a given day in each of the four
great fairs held annually near the Sadar, it is brought forth with sclaes, that merchants from whatever city my test their own standard «Stone» against it. The «Stone» of Port Kar, tested against the official «Stone» at the Sardar, reposed in a special fortified building in the great arsenal, which complex was admininstered by agents of the Council of Captains.

  Medium class for a long ship, or ram-ship, in determined not by freight capacity but by keel length and width of beam; a medium-class long ship, or ram-ship, will have a keel length of from eighty to one hundred and twenty feet Gorean; and a width of beam of from ten to fifteeen feet Gorean. The Gorean foot, interestingly, is almost identical to the Earth foot. Both measures doubtless bear some distand relation to the length of the foot of an adult human male. The Gorean foot is, in my estimation, just slightly longer than the Earth foot; based on the supposition that each of its ten Horts is roughly one and one-quarter inches long, I would give the Gorean foot length of roughly twelve and one-half inches, Earth measure. Normally, incidentally, in giving measures, the Earth foot, unless otherwise specified, should be understood. It seems pertinent, however, in this instance, to state the ratios in Gorean feet, rather than translate into English measure, where the harmony of the proportions would be obscurred. As in the case of the official "Stone," so, too, at the Sardar in a metal rod, which determines tht Merchant Foot, or Gorean foot, as I have called it. Port Kar's Merchant Foot, like her "Stone," is kept in the arsenal, in the same building as her "Stone."

  Not only the ships of Surbus had become mine, his men having declared for me, but his holding as well, and his assets, his treasures and equipments, and his slaves. His holding was a fortified palace. It lay on the eastern edge of Port kar, backing on the marshes; it opened, by the means of a huge barred gate, to the canals of the city; in its courtyard were wharved his seve ships; when journeying to Thassa the great gate was opened and they were rowed through the city to the sea.

  It was a strong holding, protected on the one side by its walls and the marshes, and on its others by walls, the gate, and the canals.

  When Clitus, Thurnock and I, and our slaves, had first come to Port Kar, we had taken quarters not far from that holding. Indeed its nearest paga tavern was that at which Surbus and I had met, and had crossed steel.

  The voice of the scribe droned on, reading the records of the council's last meeting.

  I looked about myself, at the semicircles of curule chairs, at the five thrones. Although there were some one hundred and twenty captains in the council, seldom more than seventy or eighty, either in person or by proxy, made an appearance at its meetings. Many were at sea, and may saw fit to employ their time otherwise. One one chair, some fifteen yards away, somewhat lower and closer the thrones of the Ubars, sat an officer, whom I recognized. He was the one who had come to the rence islands, who had had upon his helmet the two golden slashes. I had not seen Henrak, who had betrayed the rencers, in Port Kar. I did not know if he had perished in the marshes or not.

  I smiled to myself, looking upon the bearded, dour countenance of the officer, his long hair tied behind his head with scarlet string.

  His name was Lysias.

  He had ben a captain for only four months, having acquired the fifth ship, medium-class, required.

  He was rather well known now in Port Kar, having lost six barges, with their slaves and cargo, and most of his crews, in the marshes. The story was that they had been attacked by more than a thousand rencers, abetted by a conjectured five hundred mercenaries, trained warriors, and had barely escaped with their lives. I was ready to grant him part of this story. But still, even in the face of such reputed odds as he had faced, there were those in Port Kar who smiled behind his back, thinking to themselves how he had gone forth with so fine a showing and had returned with little more than his life, a handful of terrified men, and a narrow wooden punt.

  Though his helmet still bore the two golden slashes, in now bore as well a crest of sleen hair, permitted only to captains.

  He had received his fifth ship as a gift from the Ubar Henrius Sevarius, claiming to be the fifth of his line. Henrius Sevarius was said to be a mere boy, and his Ubarate one which was administered by his regent, Claudius, once of Tyros. Lysias had been client to the house of Sevarius, it was said, for five years, a period coterminous with the regency of Claudius, who had assumed the power of the house following the assassination of Henrius Sevarius the Fourth. Many of the captains, incidentally, were client to one Ubar or another. I myself did not choose to apply for clienthood with a Ubar of Port Kar. I did not expect to need their might, nor did I wish to extend them my service. I noted that Lysias was looking at me.

  Something in his face seemed puzzled.

  He may have seen me that night, among the rencers on the island, but he did not place me, one who now sat on the Council of the Captains of Port Kar. He looked away.

  I had seen Samos, First Slaver of Port Kar, only once at the meeting of the council. He was said to be an agent of Priest-Kings. Originally I had intended to come to Port Kar to contact him, but I had, of course, now chosen not to do so.

  He had not seen me before, though I had seen him, at teh Curulean Auction House of Ar, something less than a year ago.

  I had done well in Port Kar, since I had come to the city some seven months ago. I was now through with the serves of Priests-Kings. They might find others to fight their battles and risk their lives for them. My battles now would be my own; my risks would be undertaken only for my own gain.

  For the first time in my life I was rich.

  I depised, I discovered, neither power nor wealth.

  What else might motivate an intelligent man, other perhaps than the bodies of his women, or those he would decide to make his women, which might serve him for recreation?

  In these days, in myself, I found little that I could respect, but I did find that I had come, in my way, to love the sea, as is not uncommon with those of Port Kar.

  I had seen her first at dawn, from the high roof of a paga tavern, holding in my arms the body of a man dying of a wound, one which I had inflicted. I had found her beautiful then, and I had never ceased to do so.

  When Tab, young, lean, gray-eyed, who had been second to Surbus, asked me what I would have him do, I had looked upon him and said, "Teach me the Sea." I had raised my own flag in Port Kar, for tehre is no single flag for the city. There are the five flags of the Ubars, and many flags for many captains. My own flag bore the design of the head of a black bosk against a background of vertical green bars on a white field. I took the green bars to symbolize the rence marshes, and the flag, thus, because that of Bosk, a Captain, who had come from the marshes.

  I had discovered, to my pleasure, that the girl Luma, whom I had saved from Surbus, wahs of the Scribes. Her city had been Tor.

  Being of the Scribes she could, of course, read and write.

  "Can you keep accounts?" I had asked her.

  "Yes, Master," she had responded.

  I had made her the chief scribe and accountant of my house.

  Each night, in my hall, before my master's chair, she would kneel with her tablets and give me an accounting of the day's business, with reports on the progress of various investments and ventures, often making suggestions and recommendations for further actions.

  This plain, thin girl, I found, had an excellent mind fro the complicated business transactions of a large house.

  She was a most valuable slave.

  She much increased my fortunes.

  I permitted her, of cours, but a single garment, but I allowed it to be opaque, and of the blue of the Scribes. It was sleeveless and fell to just above her knees. Her collar, however, that she might not grow pretentious, was of simple steel. It read, as I wished, I BELONG TO BOSK.

  Some of the free men in the house, particularly of the scribes, resented that the girl should have a position of such authority. Accordingly, when receiving their reports and transmitting her instructions to them, I had informed her
that she would do so humbly, as a slave gir, and kneeling at their feet. This mollified the men a good deal, though some remained disgruntled. All, I think, feared taht her quick stylus and keen mind would discover the slightest descrepancies in their columns and tally sheets, and, indeed, they seemed to do so. I think they feared her, because of the excellence of her work and because, behind her, stood the power of the house, its Captain, Bosk of the Marshes. Midice now possessed a hundred pleasure silks, and rings and beads, which she might twine in her now-jeweled collar.

  The dark-haired, lithe girl, so marvelously legged, I discovered, made an excellent slave.

  Once I had discovered her gazing upon Ta, and I had beaten her. I did not kill him. He was a valuable man to me.

  Thurnock and Clitus seemed pleased with Thura and Ula, who now wore expensive silks and jeweled collars. They were wise to have made themselves my men. They had much advanced themselves in doing so Telima I kept mostly in the kitchens, with the other Kettle Slaves, with instructions to the Kitchen Master that the simplest and least pleasant tasks be hers, and that she be worked the hardest of all. I did, however, specify that it would be she who must personally wait my table and serve my food each night, that I might each night renew my pleasure at finding my former Mistress, weary from her day's labors, soiled and uncombed, in her briefm miserable, stained re-cloth garment, serving me as Kettle Slave. Following the meal she would retire to my quarters which, on hands and knees, with brush and bucket, she wouls scrub to the satisfaction of a Whip Slave, with strap, standing over her. Then she would retired again to the kitches for the work there that would have been left for her, after which, when finished, she would be chained for the night.

  Generally in the evening I ate with Turnock and Clitus, with their slaves, and Midice. Sometime we were joined by Tab.

  Captain, commonly, do not eat with their men.

  My attention was returned now to the meeting of the Council of the Captains of Port Kar.

  A seaman, reportedly escaped from Cos, was telling of the preparation of a great fleet intending to sail against Port Kar, a fleet that would be enlarged by the forces of Tyros as well.