"He, furious but resigned, cognizant of his expressed intentions and earlier proposals, became convinced that his duty lay in this direction. I had little doubt that if I were but once taken into companionship by him I should be sequestered, and left untouched, that that would be my punishment for having shamed him; be would keep me as his official 'companion' but he would not so much as put his hands on me; I would be forced to endure honor and freedom; respect and dignity would be forced upon me, like chains. I would lie alone, twisting in the darkness, while he reveled elsewhere, contenting himself, in the lascivious embraces of obedient slaves, painted, bangled girls, such as might be purchased in any slut market. How I would envy such girls their collars and the lash of his whip!
"It was thus that I fled Port Cos. I thought I did so, at the time, to make my fortune, but, as I understand it now, I did so to become enslaved. It was soon done to me. In the beginning, true to my resolves, I tried to be rebellious, but the impracticality of that was soon brought home to me. I soon learned that I was a slave. Gorean men allow women little latitude in this regard. She quickly learns she is a slave or she is slain. Yet I did not mind being a slave, truly, for it was what I was. I had known it for years, since my body had developed the contours and needs of a slave. It pleased me deeply that I had been given no choice in the matter, that my slavery, like the brand and collar, had been forced upon me. I had been given no choice but to be what I was. This pleased me. I have known many whips. I have had many masters, good and bad. My longest slavery was in Vonda, in a slaver's house, the House of Andronicus."
"I know who you are," I said.
"Master?" she asked. "Oh!" she said. "Master's grip is tight on my hands!" I was holding her hands over her head, together, she kneeling before me in the darkness. It pleased me to let her feel herself again in my grasp, helpless.
"By what name have you commonly been known, Slave?" I inquired.
"Oh!" she said. "Please, do not kill me, Master!" I had put the point of the blade I carried to her belly. I could feel her, through the steel, wince. She knew that even a slight pressure on that blade, Gorean steel, at that location and angle, could slit her open to the heat of her.
"By what name have you commonly been known, Slave?" I asked. It is sometimes useful to let a slave know that she may be easily killed.
"Lola, Master!" she said, frightened. "Lola!"
I released her hands. I sheathed my sword. "You may lick and kiss at my feet, Lola," I said.
She did so.
"Do you know who I am?" I asked.
"My Master," she said, "my Master."
"Stand, Girl," I said.
She did so.
"I am Jason," I told her, "Jason, of Victoria."
"Master!" she cried out, suddenly, tearfully. "Master!" She seized me in her arms, sobbing, pressing herself against me. I put my arms about her, permitting myself this tenderness towards her, though she was but a branded slave. "She sold me! She sold me!" she sobbed. "She took me to the wharves, while you were at work. She sold me!"
"She had no right to do so," I said.
The girl was sobbing, against me. I could feel her tears against my chest. "I was sold to a merchant from Tetrapoli," she said. "In Tetrapoli I was again sold, to an agent, who proved to be in the fee of Alcibron, one of the high captains of Ragnar Voskjard."
"He brought you along for his pleasure on the _Tuka_," I said.
"Yes, Master," she said.
I took her by the arms, and held her from me. "I have little time for you now," I said.
"Yes, Master," she said. "Oh, Master!" she said, as I pressed her back, and then put her on her back, on the wet boards of the hold. Swiftly I had her, for I had little time for her, then. She clutched at me, hot and shuddering. The _Tuka_ was then free of the bar. I could hear feet on the deck over our heads. Men were taking their places at the benches. The ropes by which the _Tina_ and the _Tais_ had drawn the _Tuka_ from the bar were being cast off. I could hear Aemilianus giving orders. I rose from the girl's side. I snapped my fingers. "On your feet," I told her. "We must board the _Tina_."
"Yes, Master," she said. She groaned, gaining her feet.
I went to the rupture in the side of the _Tuka_. Through the jagged rupture I could see the _Tais_, and the river chain, behind her.
I tumbled the body of the fellow who had struck at me from the hold, into the water.
The girl joined me, at my side.
"Can you swim?" I asked her.
"No," she said.
I took her by the arm and, lowering my head and crouching, pulling the girl with me, leapt downward into the water.
"Turn about," I said, "lie on your back, relax, completely."
"Yes, Master," she said, frightened.
I then, my hand in the girl's hair, drawing her behind me, swam slowly about the bow of the _Tuka_ and to the side of the _Tina_. In moments, helped by crewmen, we had attained the deck of the _Tina_.
"Welcome, Jason," said Callimachus. He grinned. "While we have been hard at work, moving the _Tuka_, it seems you have been trying chain luck."
"I did my share of the work," I laughed. "It merely chanced that she fell across my path."
We turned to regard the wet, shivering girl. Like most girls, either of Earth or Gor, she was short, curvaceous and luscious, sweetly slung.
"She is nice," said Callimachus.
"She is a pretty bauble," I granted him. The girl put down her head, smiling.
"Bring a cloak," I said. I then put the cloak about her. She drew it closely about her, holding it with her small hands.
"Thank you, my Master," she whispered.
"Lock her in the hold," I told a sailor.
"Yes, Jason," he said, and conducted the lovely slave to her confinement.
"We must soon make away," said Callimachus.
"I shall find a place at one of the benches," I said.
"Sir," said an officer to Callimachus, "there is movement on the ship to starboard."
"Then she is not abandoned," said Callimachus. "I thought not."
I remembered, then, the ship I had heard of, shortly before entering the hold of the _Tuka_, that which had been identified as a derelict, one presumably drifting downriver, lost from the confusion of the night, illuminated by our diversion of the burning _Olivia_, a pasang or so to the east. She had perhaps been struck by one of the pirate ships, or perhaps, earlier, a casualty from a previous day, had come loose from one of the bars in the river.
Callimachus and I, with the officer, went to the starboard rail of the _Tina_.
We saw oars sliding outboard. The ship was not dead.
"Surely it does not mean to attack three ships," said the officer.
"Why has it not attacked earlier?" asked a man.
"Doubtless it has been waiting," I said, "hoping that other ships would join it."
"Why should it be preparing to attack now?" asked a man. "It is not supported by other ships."
"It knows the _Tuka_ is free," said Callimachus. "If it is going to attack, it must now do so."
"But we are three ships," said a man.
"Two, if we do not count the _Tuka_," said a fellow.
"The odds, even so, are decisively in our favor," said a man. One ship, in oared battle, cannot well defend itself against two. One flank, at least, must be exposed.
"The captain is desperate," I said.
"Do you know the ship?" asked Callimachus.
"It was the first ship which left the line, the first ship to strike at us," I said. "In the movement and clashing of ships, in the confusion, in spite of the diversion, in spite of the Voskjard pennons which we have flown, she has not lost us. She has stayed with us. She has followed us, tenaciously."
"Ah," said Callimachus.
"Yes," I said, "it is the _Tamira_."
"She is moving!" said the officer.
"So, too, is the _Tais_," cried a man. I spun about. The _Tais_, dark, low in the water, beautiful, scarred and lean, fierce,
one of the most dangerous fighting ships in the navy of Port Cos, under the command of Calliodorus, captain in Port Cos, swept about the stern of the _Tuka_ and the bow of the _Tina_. She, too, had spotted the _Tamira_.
"She must not be sunk!" I cried. "Signal Calliodorus!"
"No," said Callimachus, grimly. "The horns would give away our position."
I watched the advance of the _Tamira_. She was an armed merchantman.
"Her captain must be mad," said a man.
"He has doomed his own ship," said another.
I did not even know if Reginald, on the _Tamira_, was aware of the _Tais_.
"She must not be sunk," I cried. "If anything, she must be boarded."
There was a rending of wood, a jarring and ripping of timber. I heard the screaming of men.
"It is too late," said Callimachus.
"Blood for Port Cos," said a man.
"To the _Tamira_," I begged Callimachus. "Please, Callimachus!"
"There is no time, Jason," said Callimachus.
"Other ships will be searching for us," said an officer.
"We must make away," said Callimachus.
I discarded my belt and sword and dove from the rail of the _Tina_. I heard Callimachus cry out behind me, "Come back, Jason!"
In moments I was at the side of the _Tamira_. The dark hull rolled toward me, and pressed me beneath the water. I felt her keel with my two hands, and pushed away, and again came to the surface of the water. My arm struck against an oar, unmanned, projecting downward from her side. I was aware of other men in the water about me. Some yards away I saw the dark shadow in the darkness which was the _Tais_. I pushed away a man in the water near me. My hand struck on a piece of wreckage.
"She is coming again!" I heard a man cry out in misery.
I turned in the water. The dark shape that was the _Tais_ seemed almost upon me. I twisted to the side. Under the water I felt myself being lifted and flung back and to the side by the bow wave of the _Tais_ and, at the same time, I heard the second impact. For the moment I could not think. I was aware only of the sound, my motion, and the pain. My head then again broke the surface, and I could once more breathe. I was at the side of the _Tais_. Men in the water were crying out about me. I put out my hand. I could feel the port shearing blade of the _Tais_. Then the blade moved back and the _Tais_, oars cutting at the dark river, with a ripping of strakes, extricated her ram from the hull of the stricken _Tamira_. Through wood and men I swam to the side of the _Tamira_. A dozen feet of planking, lengthwise, and some three planks vertically, had been lost.
I put my hand onto the breakage. The hole in the hull was some two feet in height. Water, as the hull shifted, would rush past me, flooding into the hold. I climbed into the hold. It was dark. A crate, loose in the water, struck against my legs. The water was then to my knees. I felt the _Tamira_ shudder, and water rushed past me, aft. The floor of the hold tilted beneath my feet. Outside I saw the dark shape of the _Tais_ swinging to starboard. Then, not hurrying, she withdrew. She had done her work.
The ship suddenly tilted sternward and I slipped in the hold, and slid aft, then struggling in the water. The breakage in the hull, through which I could see stars, was several feet away, and up the steep slope of the tilted floor of the hold. More water poured in through the breakage. Holding to the side of the hold I pulled my way toward the breakage. I got my hands on its edges and pulled myself through. I dove swiftly into the water.
I turned in time to see the _Tamira_, stern first, slip under the water. I fought back against the undertow. Then, again, the water was calm.
"Help!" I heard. "Help!"
My heart leapt. I swam toward the sound. I came to the two men struggling in the water.
"I cannot support him!" cried a voice.
"I shall help you!" I said.
I reached out and clutched the iron collar locked on the man's neck. "Do not struggle!" I told him. His hands, in manacles, on a single chain passing through a loop on the collar, thrashed at the water. Too, from the manacles other chains disappeared beneath the surface of the water.
"Do not struggle, Master!" begged the other man.
"Can you stay afloat? Can you swim?" I asked them.
"Our feet are chained!" said the man who had spoken.
"Hold to your fellow," I said. "I can support you."
I then drew them through the water to a piece of floating wreckage. I drew the first man upon it. The second climbed painfully, hampered by the chains, to its surface.
"I had not thought to meet you thus," I told them. "Strange indeed can be the fortunes of war."
"We are alone, in the river," said the first man, he whom the second had addressed as 'Master.' "It is night. We are among enemies."
"Not all are enemies," I reassured him.
"What hope is there?" he asked.
"There is hope," I assured him.
A vessel, a lantern at her bow, nosed towards us.
"We are lost," said the first man.
"Jason, is it you?" inquired a voice from the bow of the vessel.
"It is," I said.
"Come aboard," said Callimachus. "There is little time. We must make away."
I helped the two chained men to stand on the wreckage, that they might be lifted aboard the _Tina_.
"Who are your friends?" inquired Callimachus.
"Krondar, the fighting slave," I said, "and Miles, of Vonda."
Chapter 10 - WHAT HUNG AT OUR PROWS; HOW WE GREETED KLIOMENES
I crossed the wrists of Lola and, with the dark strap, bound them tightly together, before her body. I then tied the line about her wrists, that strung through the prow ring. I signaled the sailor and he lifted her from her feet and threw her over the bow rail. In a moment, caught and held by the line, she dangled, an exhibited prize, at the prow. In a river galley of the construction of the _Tina_, her legs fell on either side of the heavy, wooden concave slope of the bow to the water and ram.
Shirley, whom I had taken from Reginald, captain of the _Tamira_, said once to have been of Tafa, hung at the bow of our lead ship, the _Tuka_, that vessel said to be a well known vessel of the Voskjard. Our _Tina_ was second in our line. The _Tais_, which we feared might be recognized, brought up the rear. Both girls were naked. Both made lovely adornments to our ships.
Preferably, of course, a stripped free woman hangs at the prow of the ship, that the degree of the victory may be made even more keen and manifest, but we were forced to make do with mere slaves. Free women are not often found in the vicinity of pirates. After a free woman has once been at the prow, there is nothing to do with her later, of course, but to make her a slave.
Our three ships made their way unhurriedly through the channel leading to the holding of Policrates.
"I would stand back," said Callimachus.
I did so. It would not do to be recognized. In my tunic, against my body, there was a mask of purple cloth. I had made it in Victoria before venturing west, there to join the _Tina_ at the chain. It was identical to that which had been worn by the masked fellow who had tried to obtain the topaz from me in Victoria. I was certain that he had been the true courier of Ragnar Voskjard. I had thought that it might, in certain circumstances, prove useful. I did not, however, don it. I did not know if the courier would be expected to travel with the fleet of the Voskjard or not.
On the _Tuka_ the rowers were singing, lustily. They wore an odd assortment of garbs. Insignia had been torn from clothing. Crests had been ripped from helmets, identificatory devices pried from the convex surfaces of shields. It was not a song of Ar they sang, but a river song, a song of pirates and brawlers, "The Ten Maids of Hammerfest," in which is recounted the fates which befell these lovely lasses. I was mildly scandalized that the stout fellows of Ar, soldiers and gentlemen, as Gorean gentlemen go, would even know these lyrics, let alone sing them with such unabashed gusto. I gathered that those of Ar's Station, as well as those of Port Cos and the other river towns, knew well what to do with women,
providing, of course, they are put in collars.
I saw the flags run out on the stem-castle lines of the _Tuka_. The signals were those prescribed in the documents I had obtained from Reginald.
I saw answering flags run up on the walls of the holding of Policrates.
"Stay back," warned Callimachus.
I stepped back, further, but maintained still a position whence I might gauge the issuance of the action.
The _Tuka_, under the command of Aemilianus, lay to now, before the great sea gate of iron bars. Her rowers were now silent.
Norman, John - Gor 16 - Guardsman Of Gor v2.txt Page 10
