Explorers of Gor (8 page)

“Ha!” snorted the man who had accused her.

“How did you come to be helpless and tied beside the canal?” inquired the praetor.

The girl looked about, wildly. “We were set upon by brigands, robbed, and left tied,” she said.

There was laughter.

“You must believe me,” she said. “I am a free woman!”

“Examine the pouch of the man,” said the praetor.

It was opened by a guardsman, who sifted his hands through coins.

The girl looked, startled, at the pouch. She had apparently not understood that it had contained as much as it did. Her small hands pulled futilely, angrily, at the binding fiber which restrained them.

“It seems that the fellow who robbed you,” smiled the praetor, “neglected to take your pouch.”

The bound man said nothing. He glared sullenly downward.

“He also left you a tarsk bit,” said the praetor, to the girl.

“It was all I could save,” she said, lamely.

There was more laughter.

“I was not robbed,” said the bound man. “But I was unaccountably, from behind, struck down. I was then tied to this little she-urt. Her guilt is well known, I gather, on the wharves. Clearly enemies have intended to unjustly link me to her guilt.”

“Turgus!” she cried.

“I have never seen her before in my life,” he said.

“Turgus!” she cried. “No, Turgus!”

“Did you see me strike you?” asked the fellow who had been addressed as Turgus.

“No,” said the fellow who had been struck. “No, I did not.”

“It was not I,” said the bound man. “Unbind me,” said he then to the praetor. “Set me free, for I am innocent. It is clear I am the victim of a plot.”

“He told me what to do!” she said. “He told me what to do!”

“Who are you, you little slut?” asked the bound man. “It is obvious,” he said, to the praetor, “that this she-urt, whoever she is, wishes to implicate me in her guilt, that it will go easier on her.”

“I assure you,” smiled the praetor, “it will not go easier on her.”

“My thanks, Officer,” said the man.

The girl, crying out with rage, tried to kick at the man tied beside her. A guardsman struck her on the right thigh with the butt of his spear and she cried out in pain.

“If you should attempt to do that again, my dear,” said the praetor, “your ankles will be tied, and you will hear the rest of the proceedings while lying on your belly before the tribunal.”

“Yes, Officer,” she said.

“What is your name?” asked the praetor of the girl.

“Sasi,” she said.

“Lady Sasi?” he asked.

“Yes,” she said, “I am free!

There was laughter. She looked about, angrily, bound, I did not think she would need be worried much longer about her freedom.

“Usually,” smiled the praetor, “a free woman wears mere than binding fiber and a neck strap.”

“My gown was taken, when I was tied,” she said. “It was torn from me.”

“Who took it,” asked the praetor, “a casual male, curious to see your body?”

“A girl took it,” she cried, angrily, “a blond girl. She was naked. Then she took my garment. Then I was naked! Find her, if you wish to be busy with matters of the law! I was the victim of theft! It was stolen from me, my garment! You should be hunting her, the little thief, not holding me here. I am an honest citizen!”

There was more laughter.

“May I be freed, my officer?” asked the bound man. “A mistake has been made.”

The praetor turned to two guardsmen. “Go to where you found these two tied,” he said. “I think our missing slave will be found in the garment of the she-urt.”

Two guardsmen left immediately. I thought the praetor’s conjecture was a sound one. On the other hand, obviously, the girl would not be likely to linger in the place where she had stolen the she-urt’s brief, miserable rag. Still, perhaps her trail could be found in that area.

“I demand justice,” said the girl.

“You will receive it, Lady Sasi,” said the praetor.

She turned white.

“At least she will not have to be stripped for the iron,” said a fellow near me, grinning.

The girl moaned.

The praetor then addressed himself to the fellow who had the dried blood caked behind his left ear. It was dried in his hair, too, on the left side of his head.

“Is this female, identified as the Lady Sasi, she who detained you, when you were attacked?” asked the praetor.

“It is she,” he said.

“I never saw him before,” she wept.

“It is she,” he repeated.

“I only wanted to beg a tarsk bit,” she said. “I did not know he was going to strike you.”

“Why did you not warn him of the man’s approach behind him?” asked the praetor.

“I didn’t see the man approaching,” she said, desperately.

“But you said you didn’t know he was going to strike him,” said the praetor. ‘Therefore, you must have seen him.”

“Please let me go,” she said.

“I was not seen to strike the man,” said the fellow whom the girl had identified as Turgus. “I claim innocence. There is no evidence against me. Do what you will with the little slut. But set me free.”

The girl put down her head, miserably. “Please let me go,” she begged.

“I was robbed of a golden tarn,” said the fellow with the blood at the side of his head.

“There is a golden tarn in the pouch,” said a guardsman.

“On the golden tarn taken from me,” said the man, “I had scratched my initials, Ba-Ta Shu, Bem Shandar, and, on the reverse of the coin, the drum of Tabor.”

The guardsman lifted the coin to the praetor. “It is so,” said the praetor.

The bound man, suddenly, irrationally, struggled. He tried to throw off his bonds. The girl cried out in misery, jerked choking from her feet. Then two guardsmen held the fellow by the arms. “He is strong,” said one of the guardsmen. The girl, gasping, regained her feet. Then she stood again neck-linked to him, beside him, his fellow prisoner.

“The coin was planted in my pouch,” he said. “It is a plot!”

“You are an urt, Turgus,” she said to him, “an urt!”

“It is you who are the she-urt!” he snarled.

“You have both been caught,” said the praetor, beginning to fill out some papers. “We have been looking for you both for a long time.”

“I am innocent,” said the bound man.

“How do you refer to yourself?” asked the praetor.

“Turgus,” he said.

The praetor entered that name in the papers. He then signed the papers.

He looked down at Turgus. “How did you come to be tied?” he asked.

“Several men set upon me,” he said. “I was struck from behind. I was subdued.”

“It does not appear that you were struck from behind,” smiled the praetor.

The face of Turgus was not a pretty sight, as I had dashed it into the stones, and had then struck the side of his head against the nearby wall.

“Is the binding fiber on their wrists from their original bonds, as you found them?” asked the praetor of one of the guardsmen.

“It is,” he said.

“Examine the knots,” said the praetor.

“They are capture knots,” said the guardsman, smiling.

“You made a poor choice of one to detain, my friends,” said the praetor.

They looked at one another, miserably. Their paths had crossed that of a warrior.

They now stood bound before the praetor.

“Turgus, of Port Kar,” said the praetor, “in virtue of what we have here today established, and in virtue of the general warrant outstanding upon you, you are sentenced to banishment. If you are found within the limits of the city after sunset this day you will be impaled.”

The face of Turgus was impassive.

“Free him,” he said.

Turgus was cut free, and turned about, moving through the crowd. He thrust men aside.

Suddenly he saw me. His face turned white, and he spun about, and fled.

I saw one of the black seamen, the one who had passed me on the north walkway of the Rim canal, when I had been descending toward the pier, looking at me, curiously.

The girl looked up at the praetor. The neck strap, now that Turgus was freed of it, looped gracefully up to her throat, held in the hand of a guardsman. Her small wrists were still bound behind her back.

She seemed very small and helpless before the high desk.

“Please let me go,” she said. “I will be good.”

“The Lady Sasi, of Port Kar,” said the praetor, “in virtue of what we have here today established, and in virtue of the general warrant outstanding upon her, must come under sentence.”

“Please, my officer,” she begged.

“I am now going to sentence you,” he said.

“Please,” she cried, “Sentence me only to a penal brothel!”

“The penal brothel is too good for you,” said the praetor.

“Show me mercy,” she begged.

“You will be shown no mercy,” he said.

She looked up at him, with horror.

“You are sentenced to slavery,” he said.

“No, no!” she screamed.

One of the guards cuffed her across the mouth, snapping her head back.

There were tears in her eyes and blood at her lip.

“Were you given permission to speak?” asked the praetor.

“No, no,” she wept, stammering. “Forgive me—Master.”

“Let her be taken to the nearest metal shop and branded,” said the praetor. “Then let her be placed on sale outside the shop for five Ehn, to be sold to the first buyer for the cost of her branding. If she is not sold in five Ehn then take her to the public market shelves and chain her there, taking the best offer which equals or exceeds the cost of her branding.”

The girl looked up at the praetor. The strap, in the hand of the guardsman, grew taut at her throat.

“This tarsk bit,” said the praetor, lifting the coin which had been taken from her mouth earlier, “is now confiscated, and becomes the property of the port.” This was appropriate. Slaves own nothing. It is, rather, they who are owned.

The girl, the new slave, was then dragged stumbling away from the tribunal.

I noted that Ulafi, captain of the Palms of Schendi, and his first officer, were now standing near me in the crowd. They were looking at me.

I made my way toward them.

“I would book passage on the Palms of Schendi,” I told them.

“You are not a metal worker,” said Ulafi to me, quietly.

I shrugged. “I would book passage,” I said.

“We do not carry passengers,” he said. Then he, and his first officer, turned away. I watched them go.

The praetor was now conversing with the fellow, Bem Shandar, from Tabor. Papers were being filled in; these had to do with the claims Bem Shandar was making to recover his stolen money.

“Captain!” I called to Ulafi.

He turned. The crowd was dispersing.

“I could pay a silver tarsk for passage,” I told him.

“You seem desperate to leave Port Kar,” said he.

“Perhaps,” I told him.

“We do not carry passengers,” said he. He turned away. His first officer followed him.

I went to a guardsman, near the praetor station. “What efforts are being mace to recover the lost slave?” I asked.

“Are you with the Palms of Schendi?” he asked.

“I hope to book passage on that ship,” I said. “I fear the captain will delay his departure until she is recovered.” I was sure this was the case.

“We are conducting a search,” said the guardsman.

“She may be wearing the garment of a she-urt,” I said.

“That is known to us, Citizen,” said he.

“I myself,” said a nearby guardsman, “stopped a girl answering the description, one in the torn rag of a she-urt, but when I forced her to reveal her thighs, she was unmarked.”

“Where did you find such a girl?” I asked.

“Near the Spice Pier;” he said.

“My thanks, Guardsman,” said I.

It seemed to me that the blond girl might well consider various strategies for eluding capture. I did not think she would be likely to flee east along the canal walkways, for these were relatively narrow and, on them, between the buildings and the canal, she might be easily trapped. Also, though this would not figure in her thinking, she could, on the north, east and south, be trapped against the delta walls or at the marsh gates. I did not think it likely she would risk stealing a boat. Even if she could handle a small craft, which I doubted, for she was an Earth girl, probably from an urban area, the risk of discovery would be too great. Also, though she did not know it, a she-urt in a boat would surely provoke instant suspicion. Where would such a girl obtain a boat, if she had not stolen it. Too, it would, given the construction of the buildings of Port Kar, be difficult to attain the roof of one from the outside of the building. I did not think she would try to gain admittance to a building. She would probably then, in my opinion, try to find her way to markets or stay about the wharves. The markets were, for the most part, save the wharf markets, deeper in the city. I did not think she would reach them, or know how to find them. She was then, probably, in the vicinity of the wharves. Here she would, presumably, attempt to conceal herself. She might hide in various ways. Obvious ways of hiding would be to conceal herself among the boxes and bales at the wharves, to creep into a crate, or barrel, or to cover herself with sheets of sail canvas or with heavy coils of mooring rope. Guardsmen, I was certain, would examine such possibilities systematically. Too, a she-urt found in such a place, it not being night, would surely be viewed as a girl in hiding. She would presumably then be tied and taken to the praetor. Perhaps she is wanted for something.

I was now in the vicinity of the Spice Pier.

I did not think my quarry would elect an obvious way of hiding, one in which she, if found, would be immediately exposed as a fugitive. She was doubtless highly intelligent. She had been chosen as a Kur agent.

I seized a dark-haired she-urt by the arm. “Let me go,” she screamed. “I have done nothing!”

“Where do the she-urts band?” I asked.

“Let me go!” she cried.

I shook her. “Oh, oh,” she cried.

I then stopped shaking her. I held her by the arms, her toes barely touching the ground. She was then quiet, looking up at me. Her eyes were frightened. I saw she was ready to be obedient.