Gor - Raiders Of Gor Part 33

"what are you going to do with me?" she asked.

"Whe the treasures have been checked, tallied, and appraised, which should take some four or five weeks," I told her, "you, with your maidens, in the chains of slave girls, will be displayed, together with samples of, and full accountings of, the other treasures, before the Council of Captains."

"We are booty?" she asked.

"Yes," I said.

"Apparently then, Captain," said she, icily, "you have perhaps a full month of triumph before you."

"Yes," I said, waving again to the crowds, "that is true."

"What will you do with us after we have been displayed before the council of captains?" she asked.

"That," I told her, "you may wait until then to find out."

"I see," she said, and turned her head away.

More flowers fell, and there was more cheering, and hooting and jeers for the bound girl.

Had there ever been triumph such as this in Port Kar, I asked myself, and answered, doubtless never, and smiled, for I knew that this was but the beginning. The climax would occur in some four or five weeks in the formal presentations before the Council, and in the receipt of its highest accolade as worthy captain of Port Kar.

"Hail Port Kar!" I cried to the crowds.

"Hail Port Kar!" they cried. "And hail Bos, Admiral of Port Kar!"

"Hail Bosk!" cried my retainers. "Hail Bosk, Admiral of Port Kar!"

It was now five weeks after my triumphal entry into Port Kar.

In this very afternoon the formal presentations and accountings of the victory and its plunder had taken place in the chamber of the Council of Captains.

I rose to my feet and lifted my goblet of paga, acknowledging the cries of my retainer.

The goblets clashed and we drank.

It had been five weeks of entertainments, of fetes, of banquets and honors piled one upon another. The treasures taken were rich beyond our wildest expectations, beyond the most remote calculations of our most avaricious scribes. And now, in this very afternoon, my glories had been climaxed in the chamber of the Council of Captains, in which had taken place the formal presentations and accountings of the victory and its pluder, in which had taken place the commendation of the 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 a.r.s.enal Guard, however, perhaps for traditional reasons, remained a separate body, concerned with the a.r.s.enal, 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 ca.n.a.l. 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 a.r.s.enal 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 ca.n.a.l, 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 pet.i.tions 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, "Thurnc.o.c.k, c.l.i.tus, 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 c.l.i.tus, 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 ident.i.ty. I knew him, and so, too did Thurnock and c.l.i.tus. 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 ident.i.ty. And yet, in a sense, he had no true ident.i.ty other than that of Fish, the slave boy, for he had been enslaved and a slave has no ident.i.ty 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."