Vagabonds of Gor (21 page)

In time my back hurt less.

It had been very hot in the marsh today.

I recalled the ankles of the Lady Ina, and her face. She had shown me her ankles of her own will, and, I suspect, had desired to reveal to me, also, her face. I wondered if it were good that I had looked upon her ankles, her face. It is not like looking on the beauty of a female slave whom one may then, with a snap of the fingers, send to the furs.

"It was hot today," said a man.

"Yes," said another.

Indeed, it had been. I had had an uneasy feeling in that heat, that quiet, oppressive, steaming heat. I had felt almost as if something lay brooding over the marsh, or within it, something dark, something physical, almost like a presence, something menacing.

"What do you think of the Lady Ina?" one fellow asked another.

"A she-sleen," said the other.

"But I would like to get my hands on her," said the first fellow.

"I, too," laughed the second.

It occurred to me how much refuge women have in a civilized world, protected by customs, by artifices, by conventions, by arrangements, by laws. Did they understand, I wondered, the tenuousness of such things, their fragility, their dependence on the will of men? Did they wonder sometimes, I wondered, what might be their lot, or how they might fare, if such things were swept away, if suddenly they no longer existed? Did they understand that then they would as vulnerable as slaves? One wants a civilization, of course. Civilizations are desirable. One would wish to have one. But then, again, there are many sorts of civilizations. Suppose an old order should collapse, or disintegrate, or be destroyed. What would be the nature of the new order? Surely it need not be built on the failed model of the old order. That was an experiment which was tested, and found wanting. It was a mistake. It did not work. What would the new order be like? Let us hope it would be a sounder order, one, for once, fully in harmony with nature. What would the position of women be in the new order, I wondered. Would women have a place in the new order, I wondered. Certainly, I thought, a very secure place.

It would be hard to sleep tonight, for the ropes.

I thought again of the Lady Ina. I wondered, idly, what she might look like, stripped, kneeling, in a collar and chains. She would probably be acceptable, I thought.

I listened to bird-like cries in the marsh. The Lady Ina had thought them Vosk gulls. So, too, did the men. They may, of course, have been right.

Eventually I slept.

***

"Hold!" whispered a fellow ahead, wading, his hand held back, palm exposed.

I stopped in the yoke. The three-log raft, the harness settling in the water between myself and it, moved slowly forward. In a moment I felt the logs touch my back, gently, beneath the yoke. I heard weapons about me, unsheathed.

The officer's barge was to my right, he forward, with others. The fellow on the observation platform on the barge, crouched down.

"We have them now, lads," whispered the officer to some of the men wading between the raft and barge. He made a sign. Subalterns, with signs, deployed their men.

I felt an arm placed over the yoke and about my neck, holding me in place. At my throat, too, my chin now lifted, my head back against the yoke, I felt the edge of a knife. "Do not move," whispered my keeper, he lying on his stomach now, on the raft. They did not fear my crying out, as I was gagged. They would take no chances, however, with my attempting to make noise, perhaps by splashing or pounding my yoke against the raft.

Files of men waded past me. I could see other files, too, on the other side, once they were beyond the barge. Some were held in the rence, others were circling to the left, and, I suppose, on the other side, to the right.

For days we had plunged deeper and deeper into the delta, in pursuit of Cosians. Several times before we had caught glimpses of an elusive barge ahead, not of Ar. It had, rightly or wrongly, become something of a symbol, a token of the Cosians, the pursued foe. Even from a sober military point of view, of course, given the suppositions of the men of Ar, it was natural to associate the barge with the Cosians, conjecturing it to be, say, one of their transport craft or a vessel of their rear guard. The fact that it had been so difficult to close with it had, of course, encouraged such suppositions.

"Go ahead, sleen," whispered the keeper behind me, his knife at my throat, "try to warn your fellows. Go ahead!"

I remained absolutely still.

"Soon," said he, "the swords of the lads of Ar will drink the blood of the sleen of Cos."

I felt the edge of his knife at my throat.

I was absolutely still.

More men waded by, silently.

"It is for this reason that you have been brought to the delta," said he, "that you might witness with your own eyes the unavailingness of your espionage and the destruction of your fellows."

I did not move.

"But then, as a spy," he laughed, "I suppose you would not try to warn them. You would be too clever to do so. Spies are more concerned, as I understand it, with their own skin." He chuckled. "But your skin, my Cosian sleen," said he, "belongs to Ar. Does the yoke on you, and the harness on your back, not tell you that?"

I did not move. I feared he might, in his excitement, with the closing on the barge, slip with the knife, when the attack signal was uttered.

"Your skin, spy," said he, "belongs to Ar, as much as that of a slave girl to her master."

I sensed the signal would be soon given. By now the men must be in position.

"Perhaps you would like to try to escape?" he asked.

I felt the knife at my throat. It was of Gorean sharpness. Then he turned the blade a little so that I felt its side and not its edge. Almost at the same instant, from ahead and the sides, ahead, I heard the war cries of Ar and the movements of large numbers of men, hundreds of them, hastening in the marsh, converging doubtless on the barge. At the same, time, too, I felt the side of the knife press against my throat, reflexively, almost like an eye blink, given the sudden clamor in the marsh. Then, in an instant, the blade was turned again, so that the edge was again at my throat.

"Steady, steady," whispered my keeper.

I did not move.

But there was no sound from ahead of clashing metal, of shouts, of cries for quarter.

We did hear men ascending the barge.

The keeper was far more surprised, I am sure, than I was. The knife remained at my throat for a time. If fleeing Cosians came through the marsh, plunging toward us, it was his intent, I gathered, at least if it seemed prudent, to cut my throat. In this fashion he could both prevent my escape and free his hands to deal with, or defend himself from, fugitives.

But in a few moments he removed the knife from my throat and stood up, puzzled, I think, on the raft.

No fugitives came plunging through the rence.

As I have suggested, this was not surprising to me.

In a few Ehn, however, a fellow did approach, covered with mud, cut from the rence. He had, I gathered, forced his way through the rence, in the charge. His weapon was still unsheathed. "Bring the prisoner forward," he said.

My keeper put a rope on my neck and then freed me from the harness.

The raft was thrust up, on a small bar, that it not drift away.

"Precede me," he said, pointing forward.

I went before him, through the rence. In a few yards we had come to the side of the low, covered barge. Many men were standing about, in the water. Too, there were now many of their small craft about, brought from the rear. The barge was aground, tipped, on a sand bar. In another Ahn, or with a change of wind, and current, it might be swept free.

"Come aboard," said the officer, now on the barge.

I looked up at him, over the gag.

I was pushed forward. Men reached down from the barge. Others, in the water, thrust me up. I was seized beneath the arms and drawn aboard. My keeper, my leash in his grasp, clambered aboard, after me.

On the deck of the barge, toward the stem, I could see that the small, slatted windows on the port side of the barge had been burst in. The door aft, leading down two or three steps to the interior of the cabin, hung awry.

The captain looked up at me.

I knelt.

"Remove his gag," he said.

This was done, and wrapped about the leather strap looped twice about my neck, that threaded through the center hole in the yoke, behind my neck. It felt good to get the heavy, sodden wadding out of my mouth.

"Some think you know the delta," he said to me.

"I am not a rencer," I said. "It is they, if any, who know the delta. I am of Port Kar."

"But you have been in the delta before," he said.

"Yes," I said.

"Have you seen barges of this sort before?" he asked.

"Yes," I said. "Of course."

"Wrap his leash about the yoke," said the officer to my keeper. "I will take charge of him."

The keeper wrapped the rope leash about the yoke, behind my arm.

"Come with me," said the officer.

I rose to my feet. This can be difficult to do in a heavy yoke, a punishment yoke, but was not difficult in the lighter yoke, a work yoke, which I wore. I put down my head, and followed the officer through the small door and down the two stairs, to the interior of the cabin. His mien made it clear that others were not to follow.

The cabin was not completely dark, as the windows at the sides had been broken in. Some, perhaps, might have been broken before. But I had little doubt that it was due to the men of Ar, themselves, in the vigor of their attack, that others had been destroyed, and that the door in the back, that awry in the threshold, through which we had entered, had been broken. I looked about the half-dark interior of the large, low-roofed cabin.

"A great victory," I commented.

The cabin was, in effect, empty, save for some benches and other paraphernalia. To be sure, there was some debris about, much dust. There was no sign that the area had been recently occupied.

"I do not understand it," said the officer to me. I did not respond.

"Where are the Cosians?" he asked me.

"Did you question the crew?" I asked.

"There was no crew," he said, angrily.

I was again silent. I had not thought that there would have been. If there had been, it was not likely the barge would be still aground, particularly with pursuers in the vicinity. The men of Ar, of course, were moving during the day, and in numbers. Too, they were strangers to the delta. They did not move with the silence, the stealth, of rencers.

"There may have been a crew," said the officer. "They may not have had time to free it of the bar."

"But there is little evidence that there has been a crew here for some time," I observed. To be sure, perhaps some fellows had poled it from time to time, earlier. But there was little evidence, as far as I could tell, of even that, certainly not in the cabin itself.

"Where are the Cosians?" he demanded.

I looked about the dusty, half-lit cabin. "It seems not here," I said.

"We have pursued this barge for days," said he, angrily. "Now we have closed with it. And it is empty!"