Gor - Raiders Of Gor Part 21

I indicated the small fire burning to one side, that which had been caused by the fallen lamp with candle. "Put it out," I told two of the frightened pages.

I resheathed my sword.

The two pages leapt to do my bidding.

"Gather up and guard the book of the Council," I told the Scribe who had been at the great table.

"Yes, Captain," said he, leaping to seize it up.

I then, throwing papers to the floor, scattering ink, lifted the great table over my head.

There were cries of astonishment.

I turned and, step by step, carrying the great table, advanced toward the large door leading to the hallway.

More captains, their back to the room, fighting, falling, were retreating through the door.

They were the last of the captains.

Over their heads in the doorway I flung the great table.

Its great weight, to screams of horror, fell crushing upon men who, with shields and swords, were closely pressing the captains.

I saw, wide with horr in the apertures of their helmets, the eyes of men pinned beneath its beams.

"Bring curule chairs!" I ordered the captains.

Though many were wounded, though all could scarcely stand, they leaped to gather up chairs and hurl them into the doorway.

Crossbow bolts flashed through the chairs, splintering their backs and sides.

"More tables!" I cried.

Men, and scribes, and pages, too, came forward, four and six men to a table, adding the tables ot our barricade.

From the outside some men tried to climb the barricade, and break it down.

On its height they met Bosk, in his hands the wine-tempered steel of a Ko-ro-ban blade.

Four men fell reeling backward, tumbling down the chairs and tables.

Crossbow bolts flashed about my head.

I laughed, and leaped down. No more men were trying to climb the wood of the barricade.

"Can you hold this door?" I asked the captains, and the scribes and pages there.

"We will," they said.

I gestured to the side door, through which Lysias and, I a.s.sumed, he who had been scribe for Henrius Sevarius, had escaped. Several of the pages, incidentally, and some of the scribes had also fled through that door. "Secure that door," I told four of the captains.

Immediately they went to the door, calling scribes and pages to help.

I myself, taking with me two captains, went to a rear corner of the great chamber, whence, via a spiraling stairwell, the roof of the hall of council might be attained.

We soon found ourselves on the sloping roof of the hall of the council, shielded and turrets and decorative embrasures at its edge.

From there, in the late afternoon sun, we could see smoke from the wharves and a.r.s.enal to the west.

"There are no ships from Cos or Tyros in the harbor," said one of the captains standing near me.

I had seen this.

I indicated wharves. "Those wharves," I said, "are those of Chung and Eteocles?"

"Yes," said one of the captains.

"And those," I asked, indicating other wharves, farther to the south, "are those of Nigel and Sullius Maximus."

"Yes," said the other captain.

"Doubtless there is fighting there," said the first captain.

"And along the wharves generally," said the second.

"It seems," I said, "that the holdings of Henrius Sevarius, patron of the captain Lysias, are untouched."

"It does indeed," said the first captain, through gritted teeth.

Below in the streets we heard trumpets. Men were shouting.

We saw some waving banners, bearing the design of the house of Sevarius.

They were trying to urge men into the streets to support them.

"Henrius Sevarius," they were crying, "Ubar of Port Kar."

"Sevarius is proclaiming himself Ubar," said the first captain.

"Or Cladius, his regent," said the other.

We were joined by another captain. "It is quiet now below," he said.

"Look there," I said. I pointed down to some of the ca.n.a.ls, cutting between the buildings. Slowly, moving smoothly, there oars dipping in rhythm, from various sides, we saw tarn ships moving toward the hall of the council.

"And there!" cried another captain, pointing to the streets.

There we saw crossbowmen fleeing, in lines along the edges of the buildings.

Some men-at-arms were joining them.

"It appears," said one of the captains at my side, "that Henrius Sevarius in not yet Ubar of Port Kar."

At the far edge of the piazza, in one of the bordering ca.n.a.ls, nosing forward to take a berth between two tiled piers, we saw a ram-ship, medium cla.s.s. Her mast, with its long yard, was lashed to the deck. Doubtless her sail was stored below.

These are the arrangements when a galley moves through the city, or when she enters battle. On a line running from the forward starboard mooring cleat to the stem castle, furnishing cover for archers and spearmen, there flew a flag, snapping in the wind. It was white with vertical green stripes on its field and, over these, in black, the head of a Bosk.

I could see, even at the distance, leaping from the prow of the ship to the tiles of the piazza, running across the large, oblique-looking, colored squares toward the Hall of the Council of Captains, the great Thurnock, with his yellow bow, followed by c.l.i.tus, with his net and trident, and by Tab, with my men.

"Estimate for me," I said, "the damage to the a.r.s.enal,"

"It appears," said one, "to be the lumber sheds and the dry docks."

"The warehouses of pitch and that of oars, too," said the other.

"Yes," said the first. "I think so."

"There is little wind," said another.

I was not dissatisfied. I was confident that the men of the a.r.s.enal, in their hundreds, almost to the count of two thousand, would, given the opportunity, control the fire. Fire has always been regarded as the great hazard to the a.r.s.enal. Accordingly many of her warehouses, shops and foundries are built of stone, with slated or tinned roofs. Wooden structures, such as her numerous sheds and roofed storage areas tend to be separated from one another. Within the a.r.s.enal itself there are numerous basins, providing a plenitude of water. Many of these basins, near which, in red-painted wooden boxes, are stored large numbers of folded leather buckets, are expressly for the purpose of providing a means for fighting fires. Some of the other basins are large enough to float galleys; these large basins connect with the a.r.s.enal's ca.n.a.l system, by means of which heavy materials may be conveyed about the a.r.s.enal; the a.r.s.enal's ca.n.a.l system also gives access, at two points, to the ca.n.a.l system of the city and, at tow other points, to the Tamber Gulf, beyond which lies gleaming Tha.s.sa. Each of these four points are guarded by great barred gates. The large basins, just mentioned, are of two types: the first, unroofed, is used for the underwater storage and seasoning of Tur wood; the second, roofed, serves for heavier fittings and upper carpentry of ships, and for repairs that do not necessitate recourse to the roofed dry docks.

Already it seemed to me there was less smoke, less fire, from the areas of the a.r.s.enal.

The wharves of Chung, Eteocles, Nigel and Sullius Maximus, I conjectured, from the blazings along the waterfront on the west and south, would not fare well.

The fires at the a.r.s.enal, I supposed, may have been even, primarily, a diversion. They had surely served to draw the captains of Port Kar into the ambush prepared for them outside the hall of council. I supposed Henrius Sevarius might not have wished to seriously harm the a.r.s.enal. Could he come to be the Ubar of Port Kar, it would const.i.tute a considerable element of his wealth, indeed, the major one.

I, and the three other captains, stood on the sloping roof of the hall of the council and watched the ships burning the wharves.

"I am going to the a.r.s.enal," I said. I turned to one of the captains. "Have scribes investigate and prepare reports on the extent of the damage, wherever it exists. Also have captains ascertain the military situation in the city. And have patrols doubled, and extend their perimeters by fifty pasangs."

"But surely Cos and Tyros--" said one of the Captains.

"Have the patrols doubled, and extend their perimeters by fifty pasangs," I repeated.

"It will be done," he said.

I turned to another man.

"Tonight," I said, "the council must meet again."

"It cannot--" he protested.

"At the twentieth hour," I told him.

"I will send pages through the city with torches," he said.

I looked out over the city, at the a.r.s.enal, at the burning wharves on the west and south.

"And summon the four captains," I said, "who are Chung, Eteocles, Nigel and Sullius Maximus."

"The Ubars!" cried a captain.

"The captains," I said. "Send for them only a single page with guard, with his torch. Summon them as captains."

"But they are Ubars," the man whispered.

I pointed to the burning wharves.

"If they do not come," I told him, "tell them they will no longer be captains in the eyes of the council."

The captains looked at me.

"It is the council," I said, "that is now the first power in Port Kar."

The captains looked at one another, and nodded.

"It is true," said one of them.

The power of the captains had been little diminished. The coup intended to destroy them, ,swift as the falling of the a.s.sa.s.sin's blade, had failed.

Escaping into and barricading themselves within the hall of the Council, most had saved themselves. Others, fortunately as it had turned out for them, had not even been in attendance at the meeting. The ships of the captains were usually moored, beyond this, within the city, in the mooring lakes fronting on their holdings and walled. And those who had used the open wharves did not seem to have suffered damage.

The only wharves fired were apparently those of the four Ubars.

I looked out over the harbor, and over the muddy Tamber to the gleaming vastness beyond, my Tha.s.sa.

At any given time most of the ships of Port Kar are at sea. Five of mine were, at present, at sea. Two were in the city, to be supplied. The ships of the captains, returning, would further guarantee their power in the city, their crews being applicable where the captains might choose. To be sure, many of the ships of the Ubars were similarly at sea, but men pretending to the Ubarate of Port Kar commonly keep a far larger percentage of their power in port than would a common captain. I expected the power of the four Ubars, Chung, Eteocles, Nigel and Sullius Maximus, might have been, at a stroke, diminished by half. If so, they might control, among themselves, a force of about one hundred and fifty ships, most of which were still at sea. I did not expect the Ubars would cooperate with one another. Further, if necessary, the council of captains, with its power, might intercept and impound their ships, as they returned, one by one. I had long felt that five Ubars in Port Kar, and the attendant anarchy resulting from this division of power, was politically insufferable, with its compet.i.tion of extortions, taxes and decrees, but more importantly, I felt that it jeopardized my own interests. I intended, in Port Kar, to acc.u.mulate fortunes and power. As my projects developed I had no wish to suffer for not having applied for client-hood to one Ubar or another. I did not wish to have to be sue for the protection of a strong man. I preferred to be my own. Accordingly I wished for the council to consolidate its power in the city. It seemed that now, with the failure of the coup of Henrius Sevarius, and the diminishment of the power of the other Ubars, she might well do so. The council, I expected, itself composed of captains, men much like myself, would provide a political structure within which my ambitions and projects might well prosper. Nominally beneath its aegis, I might, for all practical purposes, be free to augment my house as I saw fit, the House of Bosk, of Port Kar.

I, for one, would champion the council.

I expected that there would be support for this position, both from men like myself, self-seeking men, wise in political realities, and from the inevitable and useful fools, abundant even in Port Kar, hoping simply for a saner and more efficient governance of their city. It seemed the interests of wise men and fools lay for once conjoined.

I turned and faced the captains.

"Until the twentieth hour, Captains," said I.

Dismissed, they left the roof.

I stood alone on the roof, and watched the fires. A man such as I, I thought, might rise high in a city such as this, squalid, malignant Port Kar.

I then left the roof to go to the a.r.s.enal, to see for myself what might be the case there.

It was now the nineteenth hour.

Above us, in the chamber of the council of captains, I could hear feet moving about on wooden floor, chairs sc.r.a.ping.

Each captain in Port Kar had come to the meething, saving some of those most closely a.s.sociated with the house of Sevarius.