Raiders of Gor (13 page)

I then sat down cross-legged on the tiller deck. I counted the arrows. I now had

twenty-five. Several of the warriors struck by the arrows had plunged into the

water; others had been thrown overboard by their fellows. Of the twenty-five,

eighteen were sheaf arrows and the remaining seven were flight arrows. I put the

bow beside me, and laid the arrows out on hte planking of the tiller deck.

I then rose to my feet and began to make my way, barge by barge, to the sixth

barge.

Again the slaves, chained at their benches, facing the stern of each barge, did

not so much as move as I passed among them.

“Give me water,” whispered a bound rencer.

I continued on my way.

As, I walked from barge to barge I passed, at each prow, tied above my head, a

bound, nude girl. On the second prow of the six barges, only a few feet from the

tiller dec of the first barge, it had been the tall, gray-eyed girl, who had

held marsh vine against my arm, she who had danced with such secruciating

slowness before me at the pole. On the third prow it had been the shorter,

dark-haired girl, she who had carried the net over her left shoulder. I

remembered that she, too, had dnaced before me, and, as had the others, spit

upon me.

Bound as they were to the curved prows of the barges these captives could see

only the sky over the marsh. They could hear only my footsteps passing beneath

them, and perhaps the small movement of the Gorean blad in its sheath.

As I walked back, from barge to barge, I walked as well among bound rencers,

heaped and tied like fish among the benches of slaves.

I wore the heavy Gorean helmet, concealing my features. None recognized the

warrior who walked among them. The helmet bore no insignia. Its crest plate was

empty.

No one spoke. I heard not even the ratle of a chain. I heard only my footsteps,

and the occasional sounds of the morning in the marsh, and the movement of the

Gorean blade in my sheath.

When I reached the tiller deck of the sixth barge I looked back, surveying the

barges.

They were mine now.

Somewhere I heard a child crying.

I went forward to the foredeck of the sixth barge and there freed the rence

craft of its tether to the mooring cleat and climbed over the side, dropping

into the small craft. I pulled the oar-pole from the mud at its side, and then,

standing on the wide, sturdy little craft which Telima had fashioned from the

rence I had gathered, I poled my way back to the first barge.

The slaves, those at the benches, and those who lay bound between them, as I

passed the barges, were silent.

I refastened the rence craft at the first barge, to the starboard mooring cleat

just abaft of the prow.

I then climbed aboard and walked back to the tiller deck, where I took my seat

on the chair of the oar-master.

Telima, haltered, bound hand and foot, kneeling on the second broad step on the

stairs leading up to the tiller deck, looked up at me.

“I hate rencers,” I told her.

“Is that why you have saved them,” she asked, “from the men of Port Kar?”

I looked at her in fury.

“There was a child,” I said, “one who was once kind to me.”

“You have done all this,” she asked, “because a child was once kind to you?”

“Yes,” I said.

“And yet now,” she said, “you are being cruel to a child, one who is bound and

hungry, or thirsty.”

It was true. I could hear a child crying. I now could place that the sound came

from the second barge.

I rose from the chair of the oar-master, angrily. “I have you all,” I told her,

“and the slaves at the benches as well! If I wish, I will take you all to Port

Kar, as you are, and sell you. I am on man armed and strong among many chained

and bound. I am master here!”

“The child,” she said, “is bound. It is in pain. It is doubtless thirsty and

hungry.”

I turned and made my way to the second barge. I found the child, a boy, perhaps

of five years of age, blond like many of the rencers, and blue-eyed. I cut him

free, and took him in my arms.

I found his mother and cut her free, telling her to feed the child and give

water to it.

She did, and then I ordered them both back to the tiller deck of the first

barge, making them stand on hte rowing deck, below the steps of the tiller deck,

to my left near the rail, where I might see them, where they might not,

unnoticed, attempt to free others.

I sat again on the chair of the oar-master.

“Thank you,” said Telima.

I did not deign ot respond to her.

In my heart there was hatred for the rencers, for they had made me slave. More

than this they had been my teachers, who had brougth me to cruelly learn myself

as I had no wish to know myself. They had cost me the concept that I had taken

for my reality; they had torn from me a bright image, an illusion, precious and

treasured, and unwarranted reflection of suppositions and wishes, not examined,

which I had taken to be the truth of my identity. They had torn me from myself.

I had begged to be a slave. I had chosen ignominious slavery over the freedom of

honorable death. In the marshes of the delta of the Vosk I had lost Tarl Cabot.

I had learned that I was, in my heart, of Port Kar.

I drew forth the Gorean blade from its scabbaord and, sitting on the chair of

the oar-master, laid it across my knees.

“I am Ubar here,” I said.

“Yes,” said Telima, “here you are Ubar.”

I looked down to the slave at the starboard side, he at the first thwart, who

would be first oar.

As I, in the chair of oar-master, faced the bow of the vessel, he, as slave at

the benches, faced its stern, and the chair of the oar-master, that which now

served me as Ubar’s throne, in this small wooden country lost in the marshes of

the Vosk’s delta.

We looked upon one another.

Both of his ankles were shackled to the beam running lengthwise of the ship and

bolted to the deck; the chain on the shackles ran through the beam itself,

through a circular hole cut in the beam and lined with an iron tube; the slaves

behind him, as the beam, or beams, passed beneath their thwarts, were similarly

secured. The arrangements for the slaves on the larboard side of the barge were,

of course, identical.

The man was barefoot, and wore only a rag. His hair was tangled and matted; it

had been shearted at the base of his neck. About his heck was hammered an iron

collar.

“Master?” he asked.

I looked upon him for some time. And then I said, “How long have you been a

slave?”

He looked at me, puzzled. “Six years,” he said.

“What were you before?” I asked.

“An eel fisher,” he said.

“What city?”

“The Isle of Cos,” he said.

I looked to another man.

“What is your caste?” I asked.

“I am of the peasants,” he said proudly. It was a large, broad man, with yellow,

shaggy hair. His hair, too, was sheared at the base of his neck; he, too, wore a

collar of hammered iron.

“Do you have a city?” I asked.

“I had a free holding,” he said proudly.

“A Home Stone?” I asked.

“Mine own,” he said, “I my hut.”

“Near what city,” I asked, “did your holding lie?”

“Near Ar,” said he.

I looked out, over the marsh. Then I again regarded the eel fisher, who was

first oar.

“Were you a good fisherman?” I asked.

“Yes,” he said. “I was.”

Again I regarded the yellow-haired giant, of the peasants.

“Where is the key to your shackles kept?” I asked.

“It hangs,” said he, “in the arm of the chair of the oar-master.”

I examined the broad arm of the chair, and, in the the right arm, I found a

sliding piece of wood, which I slid forward, it extending beyond the chair arm.

Inside was a cavity, containing some rags, and binding fiber, and, on a hook, a

heavy metal key.

I took the key and unlocked teh shackles of the eel fisher and the peasant.

“You are free men,” I told them.

They did not get up for a long timem but sat there, looking at me.

“You are free men,” I said, “no longer slaves.”

Suddenly, with a great laugh, the yellow-haired giant, the peasant, leaped to

his feet. He struck himself on the chest. “I am Thurnock!” he cried. “Of the

Peasants!”

“You are, I expect,” I said, “a master of the great bow.”

“Turnock,” he said, “draws a great bow well.”

“I knew it would be so,” said I.

The other man had now stood easily, stepping from the bench.

“My name is Clitus,” he said. “I am a fisherman. I can guide ships by the stars.

I know the net and trident.”

“You are free,” I said.

“I am your man,” cried the giant.

“I, too,” said the fisherman. “I, too, am your man.”

“Find among the bound slaves, the rencers,” I said, “the one who is called

Ho-Hak.”

“We shall,” said they.

“And bring him before me,” I said.

“We shall,” said they.

I would hold court.

Telima, kneeling bound below me, on the left, the binding fiber on her throat,

tethered to the mooring cleat, looked up at me. “What will be the pleasure of my

Ubar with his captives?” she asked.

“I will sell you all in Port Kar,” I said.

She smiled. “Of course,” she said, “you may do what you please with us.”

I looked upon her in fury. I held the blade of the short sword at her throat.

Her head was up. She did not flinch.

“Do I so displease my Ubar?” she asked.

I slammed the blade back in the sheath.

I seized her by the arms and lifted her, bound, to face me. I looked down into

her eyes. “I could kill you,” I said. “I hate you.” How could I tell her that it

had been by her instrumentality that I had been destroyed in the marshes. I felt

myself suddenly transformed with utter fury. It was she who had done this to me,

who had cost me myself, teaching me my ignobility and my cowardice, who had

broken the image, casting it into the mud of the marsh, that I had for so many

years, so foolishly, taken as the substance and truth of my own person. I had

been emptied; I was now a void, into which I could feel the pourings, the dark

flowings, of resentment and degradation, of bitterness and self-recrimination,

of self-hatred. “You have destroyed me!” I hissed to her, and flung her from me

down the steps of the tiller deck. The woman with the child screamed, and the

boy cried out. Telima rolled and then, jerked up short, half choked, by the

tether, sha lay at the foot of the stairs. She struggled again to her knees.

There were now tears in her eyes.

She looked up at me. She shook her head. “You have not been destroyed,” said

she, “my Ubar.”

Angrily I took again my seat on the chair of the oar-master.

“If any has been destroyed,” said she, “it was surely I.”

“Do not speak foolishly,” I commanded her, angrily. “Be silent!”

She dropped her head. “I am at the pleasure of my Ubar,” she said.

I was ashamed that I had been brutal with her, but I would not show it. I knew,

in my heart, that it had been I, I myself, who had betrayed me, I who had fallen