Renegades of Gor (16 page)

was drunk. It was dark.

He looked about. As I thought, he would prefer the corner (pg. 106) space. I did

not think it would matter much to him that it was occupied.

“Ai!” cried the fellow from the space, lifted up, and suddenly thrown against

the wall.

The newcomer thrust his face against the fellow’s face, holding him back to the

wall. “Why are you in the wrong space?” he asked him.

“I am not in the wrong space!” gasped the fellow.

He was then flung again against the wall.

“Why!” demanded the newcomer.

“There must be some mistake!” said the fellow. He was the same fellow,

incidentally, happily, as I now noted, whom the newcomer had earlier ejected

from his bath, and then drafted into service as a bath attendant. He was

probably the sort of fellow who was very organized and rational, had come early

to the inn, generally conducted his life in a sensible manner, and so on. To be

sure, fellows such as the newcomer can be the bane of such fellows. Again he was

flung against the wall. This was a bit noisy, but then I was not asleep.

“I have the ostrakon for this space!” said the fellow.

“What has that to do with it?” asked the newcomer, again slamming him against

the wall.

“Nothing, of course!” said the fellow, trying to get his breath. “I am sorry I

am in the wrong space! I apologize! Forgive me! It was stupid of me!”

The newcomer let him slip to the floor and the fellow hastily, crawling, fetched

his belongings from space 99.

“You would not be thinking of leaving, perhaps to complain to the keeper, would

you?” asked the newcomer.

“no, no, of course not,” said the put-upon fellow.

He then placed his belongings in space 98, next to mine.

I frankly doubted that the keeper would be keen to mix into such an altercation,

particularly one involving an armed mercenary, a fellow of the company of

Artemidorus.

“You are a big fellow, too,” said the put-upon fellow, looking at me. “I trust

you do not want this place.”

“No,” I told him.

“If you do,” he said, “I could always fling myself into the wall now. I have had

experience.”

“Do not be bitter.” I said.

(pg.107) “Get that thing out of my sight,” said the bearded fellow, looking at

Lady Temione. She still lay much where she had been thrown, away from him, on

her side, much afraid to move, her hands tied behind her, her head toward my

feet, the chain, and the tag, on her neck. She put her head down, not daring to

look upon him.

“I rented her for an Ahn,” I said. “I think the time must be nearly up, and the

keeper’s man should be along presently.”

“What did she cost you?” he asked.

“A tarsk bit,” I said.

“That is far more than she is worth,” he said.

“Perhaps,” I said.

“In many cities,” he said, “one could have a coin girl for that.”

“True,” I said. Coin girls were a form of street slave, usually sent into the

streets around dusk by their masters, who commonly own several of them, with a

chain on their neck, to which would be attached, normally, a bell, to call

attention to their whereabouts, and a small, locked coin box. And woe to the

girl who returns with coins jangling in the box! To be sure, in some places, one

might even have a paga slave, or a brothel slave, for as little as a tarsk bit.

“It is too much for a free woman,” he said.

“Perhaps,” I said.

“Particularly one such as that,” he said, contemptuously.

“Perhaps,” I said.

“Perhaps it is appropriate,” he said, “a tarsk bit for a fat she-tarsk.”

“She is not really so fat,” I said. To be sure, her figure could be considerably

improved, and, if she became a slave, undoubtedly it soon would be.

“I have seen tharlarion,” he said, “who were better looking.”

Lady Temione, lying on her side, her hands tied behind her, stiffened in anger.

I did not understand her response. Certainly she did not think that she was

slave attractive—certainly not yet.

“They could not easily have charged less than a tarsk bit,” I said, somewhat

irritatedly. I must try to control myself. The tarsk bit, of course, in most

cities, is the smallest-denomination coin in common circulation.

(pg. 108) “For so much,” he said, “they should have rented her to you for a

month.”

“Perhaps,” I said.

“Such she-tarsks are worthless,” he said. “She probably doesn’t even know what

to do with her toes.”

“Probably not,” I admitted.

Lady Temione looked up, startled.

“She should have been put in a slave harness and sent to a training school,” he

said.

“I doubt that there are any nearby,” I said.

“She should have been apprenticed to a slave,” he said.

“Perhaps she will be,” I said. “As I understand it, it was only tonight that she

was put in the chain collar.” Such training schools are normally found only in

the cities. Usually, but not always, they are attached to houses of slavers.

Needless to say, their students are seldom free women, but almost always slaves.

The harness he referred to was undoubtedly not a security harness but a training

harness, a complex affair, consisting of numerous straps and rings. It is

useful, for example, in helping a woman learn how to serve a master while being

denied the use of certain of her limbs, for example, her hands. It is commonly

worn naked. Similarly, it helps the woman to adjust to her helplessness and her

condition, as, in it, she may be fastened in an incredible variety of attitudes

and positions. Its utility is limited by little more than the imagination of the

master.

“You must be a strange one,” he said to me, “to make do with a free female.”

“She does not have to remain free,” I said.

Lady Temione shuddered with fear. The tag, and padlock, shook on her collar.

“That is true.”

He looked at the Lady Temione. She did not dare to meet that fierce gaze.

Perhaps it was just as well. She might have been cuffed or kicked. I would not

have approved had he done this, but under the circumstances, considering my

purposes, I would not have interfered. As she was within my rental, and a free

person, of course, the administration of any such discipline was really mine to

do, and not his. If he wished to beat her, he should have requested my

permission. (pg. 109) Alternatively, he might have waited a bit, and paid her

next rent fee himself. Any free person, incidentally, may discipline a slave. If

this were not the case, then a slave, outside the knowledge of her master, might

dare to be insolent to a free person.

“It would not be worth harnessing her,” he said. “She would be too stupid to

learn.”

“Any woman can be taught,” I said.

“I am a free woman!” suddenly wept the Lady Temione.

He went and crouched beside her. She put her head down, frightened, on the

blanket.

“You are not a woman,” he sneered. “You are a she-tarsk.”

She sobbed.

“You are not worth sleen feed,” he said.

“Do not interfere,” cautioned the fellow in space 98, who had been ejected from

the corner space. “He is dangerous.”

“I do not expect to do so,” I said. I did not object, of course, to his abuse of

the Lady Temione. Indeed, the insults, in their way, while certainly overdrawn,

were not altogether unjustified. The danger, of course, with one of my temper,

was that I might suddenly feel a point of honor touched. Then, if I should fare

up and say, pin the fellow to the floor with my blade, my plans would be

seriously disrupted. I would be as placid as larl feigning sleep, as placid as a

Dietrich of Tarnburg.

“What are you saying,” asked the fellow, wheeling about.

“Nothing,” I said.

He returned his attention to the Lady Temione.

“You are worthless,” he told her.

“She does have auburn hair,” I informed him. “I may be hard to see in this

light.”

“Then shave it off, and sell it,” he laughed.

“The keeper might do that,” I said.

Lady Temione moaned, helplessly.

This was, of course, a genuine possibility, particularly in this area at this

time. women’s hair, long and silky, plaited into heavy ropes, is ideal for the

cording of catapults. It is far superior, for example, to vegetable fibers. It

is also superior, in length and texture, to the hair of sleen and kaiila. By

now, the hair of slaves in Ar’s Station, and doubtless the hair of most of her

free women as well, donated in the case of the (pg.110) latter as a contribution

to the defense effort, would have been shaved off, or, perhaps, cropped short.

If the keeper did decide to shave off, or crop, the hair of the Lady Temione,

and, for that matter, the others, the Lady Amina, the Lady Rimice, and so on, he

would presumably sell it to suppliers to the Cosians. Under the current

conditions, of course, it would be difficult to get such material into Ar’s

Station. Indeed, in a sense, that was the same problem I faced, finding a way

into Ar’s Station.

“Worthless,” snarled the burly, bearded fellow to the Lady Temione.

The burly fellow stood up. I saw where he had placed the pouch.

He looked down upon the Lady Temione with contempt. “Get that thing out of my

sight,” he said. “I do not want my digestion spoiled for breakfast.”

I myself did not think I would have time for breakfast. I was planning on

leaving rather early in the morning.

“Did you hear me?” he asked.

“The keeper’s man will be along presently,” I said.

“Do you cross me in this?” he asked.

“I would not think of doing so,” I said. I located the hilt of my sword. I

supposed that it might be less than noble to drive a blade through the body of a

drunken fellow in the dark, but it was probably preferable, all things

considered, to having one driven through myself.

“I will take her away,” said the fellow next to me, hastily.

“It is not your responsibility,” I said, somewhat ungraciously, I fear,

considering the generosity of his offer.

“Look,” said he. “I am now well practiced in smiting walls with my back, but I

have had very little experience in dodging swords, leaping about unarmed, you

understand, in the darkness, in the middle of a sword fight.”

“Fight?” asked the burly fellow, interested.

“So I shall be pleased to return her to the keeper’s desk,” he said.

I think the burly fellow reached for the hilt of his sword, but I missed it.

My own blade left the sheath. I stood up.

The fellow between us moaned, and prepared to crawl rapidly to safety.

(pg.111) “Oh!” said Lady Temione, lifted now, backwards, to the shoulder of the

keeper’s man who, unnoticed, had approached. “Slut rent period is up,” he said.

“Take her away,” said the burly fellow, with a wave of his hand.

“That is my intention,” said the keeper’s man. He turned his back on us, and I

saw, again, the face of the Lady Temione, facing backwards, held upon his

shoulder in slave position.

“Put her in a tarsk cage,” laughed the fellow. “That is where she belongs.”

Lady Temione briefly struggled in frustration on the shoulder of the keeper’s

man, squirming there doubtlessly more deliciously than she knew, and pulling

helplessly at her bound wrists. She would be carried about and done with, of

course, precisely as men wished. She looked back now in anger, but also in fear,

at the burly fellow. Doubtless she thought she was attractive now. She did not

understand, of course, how attractive, truly, she might be, subject to certain

alterations in her condition. Our eyes met.

“Who wants a fight?” asked the burly fellow, unsteadily. He now had his hand on

the hilt of his sword.

“No one,” said the fellow between us, hastily, earnestly.

I did not think the burly fellow could well attack with the other fellow between

us, not, at least, without cutting him out of the way. That would indeed be a

poor way for that fellow to end his day, which had not been a very good one

anyway. I sheathed my sword. I was not even sure that the burly fellow, in the

darkness, realized I had drawn it. He himself had not proceeded further than to

get his hand on his sword. I do not think he realized he was in any danger.

“Are you the one who wants to fight?” he asked.

“Not me,” I said.

“Then it is you!” cried the burly fellow, turning on the fellow between us.

“No!” cried the fellow.

His response was surely prompt, I thought. It was assured and definite. It left

little doubt about the matter.

“I am tired,” announced the burly fellow.

“It is time then to go to sleep,” said the other man.

(pg.112) The burly fellow stood there for a moment considering this possibility.

“Perhaps,” he said.

I was sure, now, that it would not prove necessary to run the fellow through, at

least at this time. in such a thrust, of course, he in his present condition,

there would have been little of honor. Too, it is difficult to use a sword in a

professional manner in the darkness, and I tend to be vain about such things.

The sword is less akin to darkness than stealth and the dagger. A recruit, under

the circumstance, could have felled him.

“It is time to go to sleep,” announced the burly fellow.

“Yes, you are right,” agreed the other man.