by John Norman
"Interesting," I observed.
"Yes," said he, "I thought so." He held out his hands and I tossed the object back. "I have had it for some time," he said. "It was given to me by two travelers."
"Oh," I said.
When Kamchak had finished his freshly roasted meat and his flagon of bosk milk, he shook his head and rubbed his nose.
He looked at Miss Cardwell. "Tenchika and Dina are gone," said he. "You may sleep once more in the wagon."
Elizabeth cast a grateful look at him. I gathered that the ground under the wagon was hard.
"Thank you," she said.
"I thought he was your master," remarked Aphris.
"Master," added Elizabeth, with a withering look at Aphris, who smiled.
I now began to understand why there were often problems in a wagon with more than one girl. Still, Tenchika and Dina had not quarreled very much. Perhaps this was because Tenchika's heart was elsewhere, in the wagon of Albrecht of the Kassars.
"Who, may I ask," asked Aphris, "were Tenchika and Dina?"
"Slaves, Turian wenches," said Kamchak.
"They were sold," Elizabeth informed Aphris.
"Oh," said Aphris. Then she looked at Kamchak. "I do not suppose I shall be fortunate enough to be sold?"
"She would probably bring a high price," pointed out Elizabeth, hopefully.
"Higher than a barbarian surely," remarked Aphris.
"Do not fret, Little Aphris," said Kamchak, "when I am finished with you I shall—if it pleases me—put you on the block in the public slave wagon."
"I shall look forward to the day," she said.
"On the other hand," said Kamchak, "I may feed you to the kaiila."
At this the Turian maiden trembled slightly, and looked down.
"I doubt that you are good for much," Kamchak said, "but kaiila feed."
Aphris looked up angrily.
Elizabeth laughed and clapped her hands.
"You," said Kamchak, glaring at Elizabeth, "you stupid little barbarian—you cannot even dance!"
Elizabeth looked down, confused, rather shamed. It was true, what Kamchak had said.
The voice of Aphris was timid and quiet. "I can't either," she said.
"What!" howled Kamchak.
"No," cried Aphris, "I never learned!"
"Kaiila feed!" cried Kamchak.
"I'm sorry," said Aphris, now a bit irritated, "I just never planned on becoming a slave."
"You should have learned anyway," cried the disappointed Kamchak.
"Nonsense," said Aphris.
"It will cost money," grumbled Kamchak, "but you will learn—I will have you taught."
Aphris sniffed and looked away.
Elizabeth was looking at me. Then she turned to Kamchak. To my astonishment, she asked, "Could I, too, be taught?"
"Why?" he asked.
She looked down, blushing.
"She is only a barbarian," said Aphris, "—all knees and elbows—she could never learn."
"Hah!" laughed Kamchak. "The Little Barbarian does not wish to become second girl in the wagon!" He gave Elizabeth's head a rough, affectionate shake. "You will fight for your place! Excellent!"
"She can be first girl if she wishes," sniffed Aphris. "I shall escape at the first opportunity and return to Turia."
"Beware of the herd sleen," said Kamchak.
Aphris turned white.
"If you attempt to leave the wagons at night they will sense you out and rip my pretty little slave girl in pieces."
"It is true," I warned Aphris of Turia.
"Nonetheless," said Aphris, "I will escape."
"But not tonight!" guffawed Kamchak.
"No," said Aphris acidly, "not tonight." Then she looked about herself, disdainfully at the interior of the wagon. Her gaze rested for a moment on the kaiila saddle which had been part of the spoils which Kamchak had acquired for Tenchika. In the saddle, in their sheaths, were seven quivas. Aphris turned again to face Kamchak. "This slave," she said, indicating Elizabeth, "would not give me anything to eat."
"Kamchak must eat first, Slave," responded Elizabeth.
"Well," said Aphris, "he has eaten."
Kamchak then took a bit of meat that was left over from the fresh-roasted meat that Miss Cardwell had prepared. He held it out in his hand. "Eat," he said to Aphris, "but do not touch it with your hands."
Aphris looked at him in fury, but then smiled. "Certainly," she said and the proud Aphris of Turia, kneeling, bent forward, to eat the meat held in the hand of her master. Kamchak's laugh was cut short when she sank her fine white teeth into his hand with a savage bite.
"Aiii!" he howled, jumping up and sticking his bleeding hand into his mouth, sucking the blood from the wound.
Elizabeth had leaped up and so had I.
Aphris had sprung to her feet and run to the side of the wagon where there lay the kaiila saddle with its seven sheathed quivas. She jerked one of the quivas from its saddle sheath and stood with the blade facing us. She was bent over with rage.
Kamchak sat down again, still sucking his hand. I also sat down, and so, too, did Elizabeth Cardwell.
We left Aphris standing there, clutching the knife, breathing deeply.
"Sleen!" cried the girl. "I have a knife!"
Kamchak paid her no attention now but was looking at his hand. He seemed satisfied that the wound was not serious, and picked up the piece of meat which he had dropped, which he tossed to Elizabeth, who, in silence, ate it. He then pointed at the remains of the overdone roast, indicating that she might eat it.
"I have a knife!" cried Aphris in fury.
Kamchak was now picking his teeth with a fingernail. "Bring wine," he said to Elizabeth, who, her mouth filled with meat, went and fetched a small skin of wine and a cup, which she filled for him. When Kamchak had drunk the cup of wine he looked again at Aphris. "For what you have done," he said, "it is common to call for one of the Clan of Torturers."
"I will kill myself first," cried Aphris, posing the quiva over her heart.
Kamchak shrugged.
The girl did not slay herself. "No," she cried, "I will slay you."
"Much better," said Kamchak, nodding. "Much better."
"I have a knife!" cried out Aphris.
"Obviously," said Kamchak. He then got up and walked rather heavily over to one wall of the wagon and took a slave whip from the wall.
He faced Aphris of Turia.
"Sleen!" she wept. She threw back her hand with the knife to rush forward and thrust it into the heart of Kamchak but the coil of the whip lashed forth and I saw its stinging tip wrap four times about the wrist and forearm of the Turian girl who cried out in sudden pain and Kamchak had stepped to the side and with a motion of his hand had thrown her off balance and then by the whip dragged her rudely over the rug to his feet. There he stepped on her wrist and removed the knife from her open hand. He thrust it in his belt.
"Slay me!" wept the girl. "I will not be your slave!"
But Kamchak had hauled her to her feet and then flung her back to where she had stood before. Dazed, holding her right arm, on which could be seen four encircling blazes of scarlet, she regarded him. Kamchak then removed the quiva from his belt and hurled it across the room until it struck in one of the poles of the frame supporting the wagon hides, two inches in the wood, beside the throat of the girl.
"Take the quiva," said Kamchak.
The girl shook with fear.
"Take it," ordered Kamchak.
She did so.
"Now," he said, "replace it."
Trembling, she did so.
"Now approach me and eat," said Kamchak. Aphris of Turia did so, defeated, kneeling before him and turning her head delicately to take the meat from his hand. "Tomorrow," said Kamchak, "you will be permitted—after I have eaten—to feed yourself."
Suddenly Elizabeth Cardwell said, perhaps unwisely, "You are cruel."
Kamchak looked at her in surprise. "I am kind," he said.
"How is that?" I asked.
"I am permitting her to live," he said.
"I think," I said, "that you have won this night but I warn you that the girl from Turia will think again of the quiva and the heart of a Tuchuk warrior."
"Of course," smiled Kamchak, feeding Aphris, "she is superb."
The girl looked at him with wonder.
"For a Turian slave," he added. He fed her another piece of meat. "Tomorrow, Little Aphris," said he, "I will give you something to wear."
She looked at him gratefully.
"Bells and collar," said he.
Tears appeared in her eyes.
"Can I trust you?" he asked.
"No," she said.
"Bells and collar," said he. "But I shall wind them about with strings of diamonds—that those who see will know that your master can well afford the goods you will do without."
"I hate you," she said.
"Excellent," said Kamchak. "Excellent."
When the girl had finished and Elizabeth had given her a dipper of water from the leather bucket that hung near the door, Aphris extended her wrists to Kamchak.
The Tuchuk looked puzzled.
"Surely," she said, "you will lock me in slave bracelets and chain me tonight?"
"But it is rather early," pointed out Kamchak.
The girl's eyes showed a moment of fear but then she seemed resolved. "You have made me your slave," she said, "but I am still Aphris of Turia. You may, Tuchuk, slay Aphris of Turia if it pleases you, but know that she will never serve your pleasure—never."
"Well," said the Tuchuk, "tonight I am pretty drunk."
"Never," said Aphris of Turia.
"I note," said Kamchak, "that you have never called me Master."
"I call no man Master," said the girl.
"I am tired tonight," said Kamchak, yawning. "I have had a hard day."
Aphris trembled in anger, her wrists still forward.
"I would retire," she said.
"Perhaps then," said Kamchak, "I should have sheets of crimson silk brought, and the furs of the mountain larl."
"As you wish," said the girl.
Kamchak clapped her on the shoulders. "Tonight," he said, "I will not chain you nor put you in the bracelets."
Aphris was clearly surprised. I saw her eyes furtively dart toward the kaiila saddle with its seven quivas.
"As Kamchak wishes," she said.
"Do you not recall," asked Kamchak, "the banquet of Saphrar?"
"Of course," she said, warily.
"Do you not recall," asked Kamchak, "the affair of the tiny bottles of perfume and the smell of bosk dung—how nobly you attempted to rid the banquet hall of that most unpleasant and distasteful odor?"
"Yes," said the girl, very slowly.
"Do you not recall," asked Kamchak, "what I then said to you—what I said at that time?"
"No!" cried the girl leaping up, but Kamchak had jumped toward her, scooped her up and threw her over his shoulder. She squirmed and struggled on his shoulder, kicking and pounding on his back. "Sleen!" she cried. "Sleen! Sleen! Sleen!"
I followed Kamchak down the steps of the wagon and, blinking and still sensible of the effects of the paga, gravely held open the large dung sack near the rear left wheel of the wagon. "No, Master!" the girl wept.
"You call no man Master," Kamchak was reminding her.
And then I saw the lovely Aphris of Turia pitched head first into the large, leather sack, screaming and sputtering, thrashing about.
"Master!" she cried. "Master! Master!"
Sleepily I could see the sides of the sack bulging out wildly here and there as she squirmed about.
Kamchak then tied shut the end of the leather sack and wearily stood up. "I am tired," he said. "I have had a difficult and exhausting day."
I followed him into the wagon where, in a short time, we had both fallen asleep.
12
The Quiva
In the next days I several times wandered into the vicinity of the huge wagon of Kutaituchik, called Ubar of the Tuchuks. More than once I was warned away by guards. I knew that in that wagon, if the words of Saphrar were correct, there lay the golden sphere, doubtless the egg of Priest-Kings, which he had, for some reason, seemed so anxious to obtain.
I realized that I must, somehow, gain access to the wagon and find and carry away the sphere, attempting to return it to the Sardar. I would have given much for a tarn. Even on my kaiila I was certain I could be outdistanced by numerous riders, each leading, in the Tuchuk fashion, a string of fresh mounts. Eventually my kaiila would tire and I would be brought down on the prairie by pursuers. The trailing would undoubtedly be done by trained herd sleen.
The prairie stretched away for hundreds of pasangs in all directions. There was little cover.
It was possible, of course, that I might declare my mission to Kutaituchik or Kamchak, and see what would occur—but I knew that Kamchak had said to Saphrar of Turia that the Tuchuks were fond of the golden sphere—and I had no hopes that I might make them part with it—and surely I had no riches comparable to those of Saphrar with which to purchase it—and Saphrar's own attempts to win the sphere by purchase, I reminded myself, had failed.
Yet I was hesitant to make the strike of a thief at the wagon of Kutaituchik—for the Tuchuks, in their bluff way, had made me welcome, and I had come to care for some of them, particularly the gruff, chuckling, wily Kamchak, whose wagon I shared. It did not seem to me a worthy thing to betray the hospitality of Tuchuks by attempting to purloin an object which obviously they held to be of great value. I wondered if any in the camp of the Tuchuks realized how actually great indeed was the value of that golden sphere, containing undoubtedly the last hope of the people called Priest-Kings.
In Turia I had learned nothing, unfortunately, of the answers to the mystery of the message collar—or to the appearance of Miss Elizabeth Cardwell on the southern plains of Gor. I had, however, inadvertently, learned the location of the golden sphere, and that Saphrar, a man of power in Turia, was also interested in obtaining it. These bits of information were acquisitions not negligible in their value. I wondered if Saphrar himself might be the key to the mysteries that confronted me. It did not seem impossible. How was it that he, a merchant of Turia, knew of the golden sphere? How was it that he, a man of shrewdness and intelligence, seemed willing to barter volumes of gold for what he termed merely a curiosity? There seemed to be something here at odds with the rational avarice of mercantile calculation, something extending even beyond the often irresponsible zeal of the dedicated collector—which he seemed to claim to be. Yet I knew that whatever Saphrar, merchant of Turia, might be, he was no fool. He, or those for whom he worked, must have some inkling—or perhaps know—of the nature of the golden sphere. If this was true, and I thought it likely, I realized I must obtain the egg as rapidly as possible and attempt to return it to the Sardar. There was no time to lose. And yet how could I succeed?
I resolved that the best time to steal the egg would be during the days of the Omen Taking. At that time Kutaituchik and other high men among the Tuchuks, doubtless including Kamchak, would be afield, on the rolling hills surrounding the Omen Valley, in which, on the hundreds of smoking altars, the haruspexes of the four peoples would be practicing their obscure craft, taking the omens, trying to determine whether or not they were favorable for the election of a Ubar San, a One Ubar, who would be Ubar of all the Wagons. If such were to be elected, I trusted, at least for the sake of the Wagon Peoples, that it would not be Kutaituchik. Once he might have been a great man and warrior but now, somnolent and fat, he thought of little save the contents of a golden kanda box. But, I reminded myself, such a choice, if choice there must be, might be best for the cities of Gor, for under Kutaituchik the Wagons would not be likely to move northward, nor even to the gates of Turia. But, I then reminded myself even more strongly, there would be no choice—there had been no Ubar San for a hundred years or more—the Wagon Peoples, fierce and independent,
did not wish a Ubar San.
I noted, following me, as I had more than once, a masked figure, one wearing the hood of the Clan of Torturers. I supposed he was curious about me, not a Tuchuk, not a merchant or singer, yet among the Wagons. When I would look at him, he would turn away. Indeed, perhaps I only imagined he followed me. Once I thought to turn and question him, but he had disappeared.
I turned and retraced my steps to the wagon of Kamchak. I was looking forward to the evening.
The little wench from Port Kar, whom Kamchak and I had seen in the slave wagon when we had bought paga the night before the games of Love War, was this night to perform the chain dance. I recalled that he might have, had it not been for me, even purchased the girl. She had surely taken his eye and, I shall admit, mine as well.
Already a large, curtained enclosure had been set up near the slave wagon. For a fee, the proprietor of the wagon would permit visitors. These arrangements irritated me somewhat, for customarily the chain dance, the whip dance, the love dance of the newly collared slave girl, the brand dance, and so on, are performed openly by firelight in the evening, for the delight of any who care to watch. Indeed, in the spring, with the results of caravan raids already accumulating, it is a rare night on which one cannot see one or more such dances performed. I gathered that the little wench from Port Kar must be superb. Kamchak, not a man to part easily with a tarn disk, had apparently received inside word on the matter. I resolved not to wager with him to see who would pay the admission.
When I returned to the wagon I saw the bosk had already been tended, though it was early in the day, and that there was a kettle on an outside fire boiling. I also noted that the dung sack was quite full.
