Nomads of Gor

by John Norman

  I wondered what was the matter with her.

  Had I not saved her?

  Were not the points between Kamchak and I, and Conrad and Albrecht even?

  Was she not safe and the match at an end?

  "The score is tied," said Kamchak, "and the wager is concluded. There is no winner."

  "Agreed," said Conrad.

  "No," said Albrecht.

  We looked at him.

  "Lance and tospit," he said.

  "The match is at an end," I said.

  "There is no winner," protested Albrecht.

  "That is true," said Kamchak.

  "There must be a winner," said Albrecht.

  "I have ridden enough for today," said Kamchak.

  "I, too," said Conrad. "Let us return to our wagons."

  Albrecht pointed his lance at me. "You are challenged," he said. "Lance and tospit."

  "We have finished with that," I said.

  "The living wand!" shouted Albrecht.

  Kamchak sucked in his breath.

  Several in the crowd shouted out, "The living wand!"

  I looked at Kamchak. I saw in his eyes that the challenge must be accepted. In this matter I must be Tuchuk.

  Save for armed combat, lance and tospit with the living wand is the most dangerous of the sports of the Wagon Peoples.

  In this sport, as might be expected, one's own slave must stand for one. It is essentially the same sport as lancing the tospit from the wand, save that the fruit is held in the mouth of a girl, who is slain should she move or in any way withdraw from the lance.

  Needless to say many a slave girl has been injured in this cruel sport.

  "I do not want to stand for him!" cried out Elizabeth Cardwell.

  "Stand for him, Slave," snarled Kamchak.

  Elizabeth Cardwell took her position, standing sideways, the tospit held delicately between her teeth.

  For some reason she did not seem afraid but rather, to my mind, incomprehensibly infuriated. She should have been shuddering with terror. Instead she seemed indignant.

  But she stood like a rock and when I thundered past her the tip of my lance had been thrust through the tospit.

  The girl who had bitten the neck of the kaiila, and whose leg had been torn by its teeth, stood for Albrecht.

  With almost scornful ease he raced past her lifting the tospit from her mouth with the tip of his lance.

  "Three points for each," announced the judge.

  "We are finished," I said to Albrecht. "It is a tie. There is no winner."

  He held his saddle on his rearing kaiila. "There will be a winner!" he cried. "Facing the lance!"

  "I will not ride," I said.

  "I claim victory and the woman!" shouted Albrecht.

  "It will be his," said the judge, "if you do not ride."

  I would ride.

  Elizabeth, unmoving, faced me, some fifty yards away.

  This is the most difficult of the lance sports. The thrust must be made with exquisite lightness, the lance loose in the hand, the hand not in the retaining thong, but allowing the lance to slip back, then when clear, moving it to the left and, hopefully, past the living wand. If well done, this is a delicate and beautiful stroke. If clumsily done the girl will be scarred, or perhaps slain.

  Elizabeth stood facing me, not frightened, but seemingly rather put upon. Her fists were even clenched.

  I hoped that she would not be injured. When she had stood sideways I had favored the left, so that if the stroke was in error, the lance would miss the tospit altogether; but now, as she faced me, the stroke must be made for the center of the fruit; nothing else would do.

  The gait of the kaiila was swift and even.

  A cry went up from the crowd as I passed Elizabeth, the tospit on the point of the lance.

  Warriors were pounding on the lacquered shields with their lances.

  Men shouted. I heard the thrilled cries of slave girls.

  I turned to see Elizabeth waver, and almost faint, but she did not do so.

  Albrecht the Kassar, angry, lowered his lance and set out for his girl.

  In an instant he had passed her, the tospit riding the lance tip.

  The girl was standing perfectly still, smiling.

  The crowd cheered as well for Albrecht.

  Then they were quiet, for the judge was rushing to the lance of Albrecht, demanding it.

  Albrecht the Kassar, puzzled, surrendered the weapon.

  "There is blood on the weapon," said the judge.

  "She was not touched," cried Albrecht.

  "I was not touched!" cried the girl.

  The judge showed the point of the lance. There was a tiny stain of blood at its tip, and too there was a smear of blood on the skin of the small yellowish-white fruit.

  "Open your mouth, slave," demanded the judge.

  The girl shook her head.

  "Do it," said Albrecht.

  She did so and the judge, holding her teeth apart roughly with his hands, peered within. There was blood in her mouth. The girl had been swallowing it, rather than show she had been struck.

  It seemed to me she was a brave, fine girl.

  It was with a kind of shock that I suddenly realized that she, and Dina of Turia, now belonged to Kamchak and myself.

  The two girls, while Elizabeth Cardwell looked on angrily, knelt before Kamchak and myself, lowering their heads, lifting and extending their arms, wrists crossed. Kamchak, chuckling, leaped down from his kaiila and quickly, with binding fiber, bound their wrists. He then put a leather thong on the neck of each and tied the free ends to the pommel of his saddle. Thus secured, the girls knelt beside the paws of his kaiila. I saw Dina of Turia look at me. In her eyes, soft with tears, I read the timid concession that I was her master.

  "I do not know what we need with all these slaves," Elizabeth Cardwell was saying.

  "Be silent," said Kamchak, "or you will be branded."

  Elizabeth Cardwell, for some reason, looked at me in fury, rather than Kamchak. She threw back her head, her little nose in the air, her brown hair bouncing on her shoulders.

  Then for no reason I understood, I took binding fiber and bound her wrists before her body, and, as Kamchak had done with the other girls, put a thong on her neck and tied it to the pommel of my saddle.

  It was perhaps my way of reminding her, should she forget, that she too was a slave.

  "Tonight, Little Barbarian," said Kamchak, winking at her, "you will sleep chained under the wagon."

  Elizabeth stifled a cry of rage.

  Then Kamchak and I, on kaiilaback, made our way back to our wagon, leading the bound girls.

  "The Season of Little Grass is upon us," said Kamchak. "Tomorrow the herds will move toward Turia."

  I nodded. The Wintering was done. There would now be the third phase of the Omen Year, the Return to Turia.

  It was now, perhaps, I hoped, that I might learn the answer to the riddles which had not ceased to disturb me, that I might learn the answer to the mystery of the message collar, perhaps the answer to the numerous mysteries which had attended it, and perhaps, at last, find some clue, as I had not yet with the wagons, to the whereabouts or fate of the doubtless golden spheroid that was or had been the last egg of Priest-Kings.

  "I will take you to Turia," said Kamchak.

  "Good," I said.

  I had enjoyed the Wintering, but now it was done. The bosk were moving south with the coming of the spring. I and the wagons would go with them.

  9

  Aphris of Turia

  There was little doubt that I, in the worn, red tunic of a warrior, and Kamchak, in the black leather of the Tuchuks, seemed somewhat out of place at the banquet of Saphrar, merchant of Turia.

  "It is the spiced brain of the Torian vulo," Saphrar was explaining.

  It was somewhat surprising to me that Kamchak and I, being in our way ambassadors of the Wagon Peoples, were entertained in the house of Saphrar, the merchant, rather than in the palace of Phanius T
urmus, Administrator of Turia. Kamchak's explanation was reasonably satisfying. There were apparently two reasons, the official reason and the real reason. The official reason, proclaimed by Phanius Turmus, the Administrator, and others high in the government, was that those of the Wagon Peoples were unworthy to be entertained in the administrative palace; the real reason, apparently seldom proclaimed by anyone, was that the true power in Turia lay actually with the Caste of Merchants, chief of whom was Saphrar, as it does in many cities. The Administrator, however, would not be uninformed. His presence at the banquet was felt in the person of his plenipotentiary, Kamras, of the Caste of Warriors, a captain, said to be Champion of Turia.

  I shot the spiced vulo brain into my mouth on the tip of a golden eating prong, a utensil, as far as I knew, unique to Turia. I took a large swallow of fierce paga, washing it down as rapidly as possible. I did not much care for the sweet, syrupy wines of Turia, flavored and sugared to the point where one could almost leave one's fingerprint on their surface.

  It might be mentioned, for those unaware of the fact, that the Caste of Merchants is not considered one of the traditional five High Castes of Gor—the Initiates, Scribes, Physicians, Builders and Warriors. Most commonly, and doubtless unfortunately, it is only members of the five high castes who occupy positions on the High Councils of the cities. Nonetheless, as might be expected, the gold of merchants, in most cities, exercises its not imponderable influence, not always in so vulgar a form as bribery and gratuities, but more often in the delicate matters of extending or refusing to extend credit in connection with the projects, desires or needs of the High Councils. There is a saying on Gor, "Gold has no caste." It is a saying of which the merchants are fond. Indeed, secretly among themselves, I have heard, they regard themselves as the highest caste on Gor, though they would not say so for fear of rousing the indignation of other castes. There would be something, of course, to be said for such a claim, for the merchants are often indeed in their way, brave, shrewd, skilled men, making long journeys, venturing their goods, risking caravans, negotiating commercial agreements, among themselves developing and enforcing a body of Merchant Law, the only common legal arrangements existing among the Gorean cities. Merchants also, in effect, arrange and administer the four great fairs that take place each year near the Sardar Mountains. I say "in effect" because the fairs are nominally under the direction of a committee of the Caste of Initiates, which, however, largely contents itself with its ceremonies and sacrifices, and is only too happy to delegate the complex management of those vast, commercial phenomena, the Sardar Fairs, to members of the lowly, much-despised Caste of Merchants, without which, incidentally, the fairs most likely could not exist, certainly not at any rate in their current form.

  "Now this," Saphrar the merchant was telling me, "is the braised liver of the blue, four-spined Cosian wingfish."

  This fish is a tiny, delicate fish, blue, about the size of a tarn disk when curled in one's hand; it has three or four slender spines in its dorsal fin, which are poisonous; it is capable of hurling itself from the water and, for brief distances, on its stiff pectoral fins, gliding through the air, usually to evade the smaller sea-tharlarions, which seem to be immune to the poison of the spines. This fish is also sometimes referred to as the songfish because, as a portion of its courtship rituals, the males and females thrust their heads from the water and utter a sort of whistling sound.

  The blue, four-spined wingfish is found only in the waters of Cos. Larger varieties are found farther out to sea. The small blue fish is regarded as a great delicacy, and its liver as the delicacy of delicacies.

  "How is it," I asked, "that here in Turia you can serve the livers of wingfish?"

  "I have a war galley in Port Kar," said Saphrar the merchant, "which I send to Cos twice a year for the fish."

  Saphrar was a short, fat, pinkish man, with short legs and arms; he had quick bright eyes and a tiny, roundish red-lipped mouth; upon occasion he moved his small, pudgy fingers, with rounded scarlet nails, rapidly, as though rubbing the gloss from a tarn disk or feeling the texture of a fine cloth; his head, like that of many merchants, had been shaved; his eyebrows had been removed and over each eye four golden drops had been fixed in the pinkish skin; he also had two teeth of gold, which were visible when he laughed, the upper canine teeth, probably containing poison; merchants are seldom trained in the use of arms. His right ear had been notched, doubtless in some accident. Such notching, I knew, is usually done to the ears of thieves; a second offense is normally punished by the loss of the right hand; a third offense by the removal of the left hand and both feet. There are few thieves, incidentally, on Gor. I have heard, though, there is a Caste of Thieves in Port Kar, a strong caste which naturally protects its members from such indignities as ear notching. In Saphrar's case, of course, he being of the Caste of Merchants, the notching of the ear would be a coincidence, albeit one that must have caused him some embarrassment. Saphrar was a pleasant, gracious fellow, a bit indolent perhaps, save for the eyes and rapid fingers. He was surely an attentive and excellent host. I would not have cared to know him better.

  "How is it," I asked, "that a merchant of Turia has a war galley in Port Kar?"

  Saphrar reclined on the yellow cushions, behind the low table covered with wines, fruits and golden dishes heaped with delicate viands.

  "I did not realize Port Kar was on friendly terms with any of the inland cities," I said.

  "She is not," said Saphrar.

  "Then how?" I asked.

  He shrugged. "Gold has no caste," he said.

  I tried the liver of the wingfish. Then another swig of paga.

  Saphrar winced.

  "Perhaps," he suggested, "you would like a piece of roasted bosk meat?"

  I replaced the golden eating prong in its rack beside my place, shoved back the glittering dish in which lay several theoretically edible objects, carefully arranged by a slave to resemble a bouquet of wild flowers sprouting from a rock outcropping. "Yes," I said, "I think so."

  Saphrar conveyed my wishes to the scandalized Feast Steward, and he, with a glare in my direction, sent two young slaves scampering off to scour the kitchens of Turia for a slice of bosk meat.

  I looked to one side and saw Kamchak scraping another plate clean, holding it to his mouth, sliding and shoving the carefully structured design of viands into his mouth.

  I glanced at Saphrar, who was now leaning on his yellow cushions, in his silken pleasure robes, white and gold, the colors of the Caste of Merchants. Saphrar, eyes closed, was nibbling on a tiny thing, still quivering, which had been impaled on a colored stick.

  I turned away and watched a fire swallower perform to the leaping melodies of the musicians.

  "Do not object that we are entertained in the house of Saphrar of the Merchants," Kamchak had said, "for in Turia power lies with such men."

  I looked down the table a bit at Kamras, plenipotentiary of Phanius Turmus, Administrator of Turia. He was a large-wristed strong man with long, black hair. He sat as a warrior, though in robes of silk. Across his face there were two long scars, perhaps from their delicacy the scars of quiva wounds. He was said to be a great warrior, indeed, to be champion of Turia. He had not spoken with us nor acknowledged our presence at the feast.

  "Besides," Kamchak had told me, nudging me in the ribs, "the food and the entertainment are better in the house of Saphrar than in the palace of Phanius Turmus."

  I would still, I told myself, settle for a piece of bosk meat.

  I wondered how the stomach of Kamchak could sustain the delightful injuries he was heaping into it with such gusto. To be sure, it had not. The Turian feast usually consumes the better part of a night and can have as many as a hundred and fifty courses. This would be impractical, naturally, save for the detestable device of the golden bowl and tufted banquet stick, dipped in scented oils, by means of which the diner may, when he wishes, refresh himself and return with eagerness to the feast. I had not made use of this particular to
ol, and had contented myself with merely taking a bite or two, to satisfy the requirements of etiquette, from each course.

  The Turians, doubtless, regarded this as a hopelessly barbarian inhibition on my part.

  I had, perhaps, however, drunk too much paga.

  This afternoon Kamchak and I, leading four pack kaiila, had entered the first gate of nine-gated Turia.

  On the pack animals were strapped boxes of precious plate, gems, silver vessels, tangles of jewelry, mirrors, rings, combs, and golden tarn disks, stamped with the signs of a dozen cities. These were brought as gifts to the Turians, largely as a rather insolent gesture on the part of the Wagon Peoples, indicating how little they cared for such things, that they would give them to Turians. Turian embassies to the Wagon Peoples, when they occurred, naturally strove to equal or surpass these gifts. Kamchak told me, a sort of secret I gather, that some of the things he carried had been exchanged back and forth a dozen times. One small, flat box, however, Kamchak would not turn over to the stewards of Phanius Turmus, whom he met at the first gate. He insisted on carrying that box with him and, indeed, it rested beside his right knee at the table now.

  I was very pleased to enter Turia, for I have always been excited by a new city.

  I found Turia to match my expectations. She was luxurious. Her shops were filled with rare, intriguing paraphernalia. I smelled perfumes that I had never smelled before. More than once we encountered a line of musicians dancing single file down the center of the street, playing on their flutes and drums, perhaps on their way to a feast. I was pleased to see again, though often done in silk, the splendid varieties of caste colors of the typical Gorean city, to hear once more the cries of peddlers that I knew so well, the cake sellers, the hawkers of vegetables, the wine vendor bending under a double verrskin of his vintage. We did not attract as much attention as I had thought we would, and I gathered that every spring, at least, visitors from the Wagon Peoples must come to the city. Many people scarcely glanced at us, in spite of the fact that we were theoretically blood foes. I suppose that life in high-walled Turia, for most of its citizens, went on from day to day in its usual patterns oblivious of the usually distant Wagon Peoples. The city had never fallen, and had not been under siege in more than a century. The average citizen worried about the Wagon Peoples, customarily, only when he was outside the walls. Then, of course, he worried a great deal, and, I grant him, wisely.