Raiders of Gor (34 page)

Council for mh deeds and the awardings of its most coveted accolade, that of

worthy captain of Port Kar.

Even now, in my feast of celebration, hours after the meeting of the council, I

still wore about my neck the broad scarlet ribbon with its pedant medallion of

gold, bearing the design of a lateen-rigged tarn ship, the initials in cursive

Gorean script of Council of Captains of Port Kar in a half curve beneath it.

I threw down more paga.

I indeed was a worthy captain of Port Kar.

I smiled to myself. As the holds of the round ships, one by one, had been

emptied, appraised and recorded, hundreds of men, most of them unknown to me,

had applied to me for clientship. I had received dozens of offers of partnership

in speculative and commercial ventures. Untold numbers of men had found their

way to my holding to see their various plans, proposals and ideas. My guards had

even turned away the mad, half-blind shipwright, Tersites, with his fantastic

recommendations for the improvement of tarn ships, as though ships so beautiful,

so switft, and vicious, might be improved.

Meanwhile, while I had been plying the trade of pirate, the military and

poitaical ventures of the Council itself, within the city, had proceeded well.

For one thing, they had now formed a Council Guard, with its destinct livery,

that was now recognized as a force of the Council, and, in effect, as the police

of the city. The Arsenal Guard, however, perhaps for traditional reasons,

remained a separate body, concerned with the arsenal, and having jurisdiction

within its walls. For another thing, the four Ubars, Chung, Eteocles, Nigel and

Sullius Maximus, their powers considerably reduced during the time of the

unsuccessful coup of Henrius Sevarius, had apparently resigned themselves to the

supremacy of the Council in the city. At any rate, for the first time in several

years, there was now a single, effective sovereign in Port Kar, the Council.

Accordingly, its word, and, in effect, its word alone, was law. A similar

consolidation and unification had taken place, of course, in the realm of

inspections and taxations, penalties and enforcements, codes and courts. For the

first time in several years one could count on the law being the same on both

sides of a given canal. Lastly, the forces of Henrius Sevarius, under the

regency of Claudius, once of Tyros, had been driven by the Council forces from

all their holdings, save one, a huge fortress, its walls extending into the

Tamber itself, sheltering the some two dozen ships left him. This fortress, it

seems, might be taken by storm, but the effort would be costly. Accordingly the

Council, ringing it with double walls on the land side and blockading it with

arsenal ships by sea, chose to wait. The time that the fortress might still

stand was now most adequately to be charted by the depth of its siege reservior,

and by the fish that might swim within her barred sea gates, and teh mouthfuls

of bread stored in her towers. The Council, for the most part, in her

calculations, ignored the remaining fortress of Sevarius. It was, in effect, the

prison of those penned within. One of those therein imprisoned, of course, in

the opinion of the Council, was Henrius Sevarius, the boy, himself, the Ubar.

I looked up. The slave boy, Fish, had emerged from the kitchen, holding over his

head on a large silver platter a whole roasted tarsk, steaming and crisped,

basted, shining under the torchlight, a larma in its mouth, garnished with suls

and Tur-pah.

The men cried out, summoning him to their table.

It had been on one side, a land side, of that last remaining fortress of Henrius

Sevarius, that Lysias, Henrak, and others had emerged from a postern, carrying

the heavy sack which they had hurled inot the canal, that sack from which I had

saved the boy.

Fish put down the whole roasted tarsk before the men. He was sweating. He wore a

single, simple rep-cloth tunic. I had had a plate collar hammered about his

neck. I had had him branded.

The men ordered him away again, that he might fetch yet another roasted tarsk

from the spit which he had been turning slowly over the coal fires during the

afternoon. He sped away.

He had not been an easy slave to break to his collar. The kitch master had had

to beat him often.

One day, after he had been three weeks slave in my house, the door to my

audience chamber had suddenly burst open, and he had stumbled in, breathless,

the kitchen master but two steps behind him, with a heavy switch.

“Forgive me!” cried the kitchen master.

“Captain!” demanded the boy.

The kitchen master, in fury, grabbed him by the hair and raised his arm to

thrash him.

I gestrued that he not do so.

The kitchen master stepped back, angry.

“What do you want?” I had asked the boy.

“To see you, Captain,” said he.

“Master!” corrected the kitchen master.

“Captain!” cried the boy.

“Normally,” I said to the boy, “a kitche slave petitions to enter his master’s

presence through the kitchen master.”

“I know,” said the boy.

“Why did you not do so?” I asked.

“I have,” said the boy defiantly, “many times.”

“And I,” said the kitchen master, “have refused him.”

“What is his request?” I asked the kitchen master.

“He would not tell me,” said the kitchen master.

“How then,” I asked the boy, “did you expect the kitchen master to consider

whether or not you should be permitted to enter my presence?”

The boy looked down. “I would speak with you alone,” he said.

I had no objection to this, but, of course, as master of the hosue, I intended

to respect the prerogatives of the kitchen master, who, in the kitchen, must

speak with my own authority.

“If you speak,” I said, “you will do so before Tellius.”

The boy looked angrily at the kitchen master.

Then the boy looked down, and clenched his fists. Then agonized, he looked up at

me. “I would learn weapons,” he whispered.

I was stunned. Even Tellus, the kitchen master, could say nothing.

“I would learn weapons,” said the boy, again, this time boldly.

“Slaves are not taught weapons,” I said.

“Your men,” said he, “Thurncock, Clitus, and others, have said that they will

teach me, should you give your permission.” He looked down.

The kitchen master snorted with the absurdity of the idea. “You would do

better,”said he, “to learn the work of the kitchen.”

The boy looked up angrily. “I am not stupid,” he said.

I looked at the boy, absently, as though I could not place him.

“What is your name?” I asked.

He looked at me. Then he said , “---Fish.”

I permitted myself to betray that I now remembered the name. “Yes,” I said,

“--Fish.”

“Do you like your name?” I asked.

“No,” he said.

“What would you call yourself,” I asked, “if you had your choice of names?”

“Henrius,” said he.

The kitchen master laughed.

“That is a proud name for a kitchen boy,” I commented.

The boy looked at me proudly.

“It might,” I said, “be the name of a Ubar.”

The boy looked down angrily.

I knew that Thurnock and Clitus, and others, had taken a liking to the boy. He

had often, I had heard, snuck away from the kitchen to observe the ships in the

courtyard and the practices of men with weapons. The kitchen master had had his

hands full with the boy, there was no doubting that. Tellius had, and deserved,

my sympathies.

I looked at the boy, the blondish hair and the frank, earnest eyes, blue,

pleading.

He was a spare, strong-limbed lad, and perhaps might, if trained, be able to

handle a blade.

Only three in my holding, other than himself, knew his true identity. I knew

him, and so, too did Thurnock and Clitus. The boy himself, of course, did not

know that we knew who he was. Indeed, he, a price on his head from the Council,

had excellent reasons fro concealing his true identity. And yet, in a sense, he

had no true identity other than that of Fish, the slave boy, for he had been

enslaved and a slave has no identity other than that which his master might care

to give him. In Gorean law a slave is an animal: before the law he has no

rights; he is dependent on his master not only for his name for for his very

life; he may be disposed of by the master at any time and in any way the master

pleases.

“The slave boy, Fish,” I said to the kitchen master, “has come unbidden into my

presence and he has not, in my opinion, shown sufficient respect for the master

of my kitchen.”

The boy looked at me, fighting back tears.

“Accordingly,” I said, “he is to be beaten severely.”

The boy looked down, his fists clenched.

“And beginning tomorrow,” I said, “if his work in the kitchen improves to your

satisfaction, and only under that condition, he is to be permitted one Ahn a day

to train with weapons.”

“Captain!” cried the boy.

“And that Ahn,” I said, “is to be made up in extra work in the evening.”

“Yes Captain,” said the kitchen master.

“I will work for you, Tellius,” said the boy. “I will work better than any for

you!”

“All right, Lad,” said Tellius. “We shall see.”

The boy looked at me. “Thank you,” he said, “Captain.”

“Master,” corrected Tellius.

“May I not,” asked the boy of me, “address you as Captain?”

“If you wish,” I said.

“Thank you,” said he, “Captain.”

“Now begone, Slave,” said I.

“Yes, Captain!” he cried and turned, followed by the kitchen master.

“Slave!” I called.

The boy turned.

“If you show skills with weapons,” I said, “perhaps I shall change your name.”

“Thank you, Captain,” he said.

“Perhaps we could call you Pulius,” I suggested, “--or Tellius.”

“Spare me!” cried Tellius.

“Or,” I said, “Henrius.”

“Thank you, Captain,” said the boy.

“But,” said I, “to have such a name, which is a proud name, one would have to

handle weapons very well.”

“I shall,” he said. “I shall!”

Then the boy turned and ran joyfully from the room.

The kitche master looked at me and grinned. “Never,” said he, “Captain, did I

see a slave run more eagerly to a beating.”

“Nor did I,” I admitted.

Now, at my victory feast, I drank more paga. That, I told myself, letting a boy

train with weapons, have been a moment of weakness. I did not expect I would

allow myself more such moments.

I observed the boy bringing in yet another roasted tarsk.

No, I told myself, I should not have shown such a lenience to a slave.

I would not again allow myself such moments of weakness.

I fingered the broard scarlet ribbon and the medallion, pendant about my neck,

brearing its tarn ship and initials, those of the Council of Captains of Port

Kar.

I was Bosk, Pirate, Admiral of Port Kar, now perhaps one of the richest and most

powerful men on Gor.

No, I would not again show such moments of weakness.

I thrust out the silver paga goblet, studded with rubies, and Telima, standing

beside my thronelike chair, filled it. I did not look upon her.

I looked down the table, to where Thurnock, with his slave Thura, and Clitus,

with his slave, Ula, were drinking and laughing. Thurnock and Clitus were good

men, they had taken a fancy to the boy, Fish, and had helped him with his work

in weapons. Such men were weak. They had not in themselves the stuff of

captains.

I sat back on he great chair, paga goblet in hand, surveying the room.

It was crowded with tables of my retainers, feasting.

To one side musicians played.

There was a clear space before my great table, in which, from time to time,

during the evening, entertainments had been provided, simple things, which even

I had upon occasion found amusing, fore eaters and sword swallowers, jugglers

and acrobats, and magicians, and slaves, riding on one another’s shoulders,

striking at one another with inflated tarsk bladders tied to poles.

“Drink!” I cried.

And again goblets were lifted and clashed.

I looked down the long table, and, far to my right, sitting alone at the end of

the long bench behind the table, was Luma, my slave and chief scribe. Poor,

scrawny, plain Luma, thought I, in her tunic of scribe’s cloth, and collar! What

a poor excuse for a paga slave she had been! Yet she had a brilliant mind for a

the accounts and business of a great house, and had much increased my fortunes.

So indebted to her was I taht I had, this night, permitted her to sit at one end

of the great table. No free man, of course, ,would sit beside her. Moreover,

that my other scribes and retainers not be angered, I had had her put in slave

bracelets, and about her neck had had fastened a chain, which was bolted into

the heavy table. And it was thus that Luma, she of perhaps greatest importance

in my house, saving its master, with us, yet chained and alone, apart, shared my

feast of victory.

“More paga,” said I, putting out the goblet.

Telima poured more paga.

“There is a singer,” said one of my men.

This irritated me, but I had never much cared to interfere with the

entertainments which were presented before me.