Quarry of gor, p.30
Quarry of Gor, page 30
“Ah,” said Bruno of Torcadino, looking to his right.
It was a small sound, that tiny exclamation, suggesting anticipation and satisfaction. I wished suddenly I could be somewhere else.
“Here approach three fellows,” he said. “They seem good fellows, and most likely well off. I am sure they can be persuaded to share their munificence. And one coin properly invested, may become two coins, and two coins four, and so on.”
“Kneel,” he said, as I was then sitting, my back to the domicile wall. I knelt and he crossed my ankles and bound them tightly together, using the leash. I would have been less helpless if he had used the close shackles which I knew so well from his apartment.
I looked down the walkway.
The three men were some forty or fifty paces away.
As they approached, an unanticipated and radical transformation took place in the demeanor of Bruno of Torcadino. He seemed to struggle to maintain his balance and leaned a shoulder against the wall. He seemed to bend and shrink. He seemed weak and frail. Then he hobbled out a bit, unsteadily, from the wall. In the place of the handicapped Bruno of Torcadino, menacing and large, watchful and threatening, fierce with the great crutch, there now seemed something lost, needful, and pathetic.
“Masters!” he cried, bent over, looking up, thrusting out an open hand toward the three men. “Mercy! Pity! A tarsk-bit for a starving fellow.”
“Do not approach us, disgusting, hideous creature, lest you spoil our appetites,” said one of the men.
“Sell your slave,” said another.
“She is dear to me, and who will care for me?” whined Bruno of Torcadino.
“Keep your distance, stay back,” said the first fellow, menacingly.
“Pity, pity, have pity,” begged Bruno of Torcadino, lurching forward another pace.
“Stay back!” warned the first fellow again. “I would not have you touch me, or be near me.”
“Be merciful, be kind,” said Bruno of Torcadino. “I am hungry.”
“Liar,” said the third man. “I see no dangling flesh, I see no bones protruding through your skin.”
“You are a fraud, half-man,” said he who seemed to be first amongst the three.
“I dislike those who are not whole,” said the second man. “They make me sick, they turn my stomach.”
“I hate liars and frauds,” said the third man.
“They will not employ me, I have no friends,” said Bruno of Torcadino, pathetically.
“Perhaps he has a coin,” said the second man.
“Let us beg it from him,” said the third.
“It seems there is a purse at his belt,” said the second man. “Let us hope it is not empty.”
“And let us sport with the slave,” said the third man. “She is comely.”
“She is excessively tunicked,” said the first man.
“That is easily remedied,” said the second man.
“Let her alone!” wailed Bruno of Torcadino.
“Let us try her lips,” said the third man.
I tried to squirm back, against the wall.
“What is your name, pretty kajira?” asked the first man.
“She cannot speak!” said Bruno of Torcadino.
“How rare,” said the second man, “what an improbable pair, a lying, importunate beggar, falsely professing hunger, with a purse at his belt, and a slave who cannot speak.”
“Do not!” whined Bruno of Torcadino.
I was lifted by one man, and the tunic was torn to my waist by another.
Bruno of Torcadino put out his hand. “Please do not, kind, noble masters,” he said. “Let her alone! She is a poor, helpless slave! She cannot even speak!” He hobbled a step toward me, as though he might intervene, but the first man, with a bitter laugh, and a sweep of his foot, kicked the crutch from under him and he fell heavily, awkwardly, to the walkway. Bruno of Torcadino reached out to retrieve the crutch, but the first man kicked it several feet down the walkway.
Bearded faces were thrust against mine, tearing at my face. My lips were thrust back against my teeth. I tasted blood in my mouth. My shoulders and back-braceleted hands were thrust back against the abrading wall. My body was rudely explored. My body, spasmodically, leapt in their grip. I shook my head, wildly, “No, no!” I could not help myself. My body had been honed to responsiveness by dozens of masters. I knew what I was. I was no more than a slave in her collar.
“Cut the leash from her ankles,” said the first of the three men.
“When we are done with her, cast her into the canal,” said the third man.
I kept shaking my head, “No,” and, at the same time, my body and needs betrayed me.
A knife cut through the leash straps on my ankles, and I felt my ankles seized and parted, widely, painfully. I sunk down, sitting, my back and hands against the wall. “This one is aflame,” said the second man. “So are they all,” said the third man. “They cannot help themselves,” said the first man. I heard laughter. I was drawn forward by the ankles, and I was then on my back, on the walkway, ankles held apart. I shook my head, “No,” again. Yet I wanted their touch, their rude might. “Her head says, ‘No’,” laughed the first man. “But her body, says, ‘Yes’,” said the second. “Her body begs,” said the third. “Hold,” said the first man. “Is she not too pretty to be a beggar’s slave?”
“How so?” asked the second man.
“She elicits insufficient pity,” said the first man. “She is insufficiently pathetic.”
“Yes,” said the third man. “She will be a much better beggar’s slave if she is mutilated, scarred, perhaps less a nose and ears.”
“Let us put her to her proper slave use,” said the second man, “and then attend to it.”
“No,” said the first man, drawing his knife from its belt sheath, “let us attend to it first.”
“Good,” said the second man.
“Good,” said the third man.
I shook my head again, “No.” Tears burst from my eyes. I wanted to cry out, but could not speak. My hair was held, holding my head in place.
I saw the knife approach my face.
I closed my eyes.
I heard the sound but did not, my eyes closed, see the blow. It was fierce, swift, and heavy. I opened my eyes, only to close them again, immediately, having caught a confused glimpse of spattered blood and half a head. The second man, he who had held my ankles, had leapt to his feet, and tried to turn about, but he had scarcely come about, when the thick, heavy, bloody crutch, like a battering ram, like lightning become timber, thrust a foot into his chest. As Bruno of Torcadino freed his crutch from the chest of the second man, the third man, in the moment, rose up, scrambled to the side, backed off, and drew a sword. No longer did Bruno of Torcadino seem cringing and weak, helpless and frail. He now, supported by the crutch, glowering, terrible in size and mien, faced the third man. The third man, clutching the sword, seemed uncertain. Clearly he contemplated flight, pondering declining to participate even in a contest so ostensibly to his advantage.
“You may buy your life,” said Bruno of Torcadino. “Leave your purse, and depart.”
“You are mad,” said the man. “What is your stick against my steel? You have one leg. I have two. I need only avoid your first blow, feinting and circling, staying outside its compass, for you will have no opportunity for a second. I could be about you a dozen times, keeping you turning, unsteady, uncertain. When will I attack? You could not know. I could be behind you so swiftly, you could not turn without losing your balance, falling, being at my mercy.”
“If you wish your life,” said Bruno of Torcadino, “leave your purse and depart.”
“I am not afraid of a cripple, half a man, a thing to mock and ridicule,” he said.
“The decision is yours,” said Bruno of Torcadino.
“Perhaps I will leave you your life,” he said, the sword wavering.
“But then,” said Bruno of Torcadino, “I will not leave you yours.”
“You are a fool, a wretched cripple, a pathetic, suitable butt for jokes and scorn. If I do not choose to kill you now, I need only turn about and walk away. Will you follow me? Will you catch me? Will you run after me?”
“I will not run after you,” said Bruno of Torcadino. “Ela, I cannot do so, even if I chose. But I will follow you, and some day, some night, somewhere, you will not know when, or where, I will find you. Then I will kill you.”
The man’s left hand went to his purse, but then he withdrew it.
“No!” he said.
“As you wish,” said Bruno of Torcadino. He then turned his back to the man. I wanted to cry out a warning to Bruno of Torcadino, but no sound could escape my lips. But Bruno of Torcadino’s right hand had slipped under the half cloak he wore over his left shoulder, where, suspended by its strap, hung a short, wicked blade, his unsheathed sword. It was hard to follow what had occurred for it was accomplished so rapidly, but, when it was done, it was clear what had been done. I remembered seeing it. I had heard just one sound, a small, swift sound, bright and quick, when Bruno of Torcadino, fiercely turned, leaning on the crutch, parried the assailant’s blade, following which he thrust.
Bruno of Torcadino looked down, to his side, where his assailant lay on the walkway, clutching his throat, blood streaming, in gouts, a cup at a time, between his hands.
I forced myself to the side, freeing myself of sprawled, bloody weight, that of he who had been the first man, his head half broken, half torn away, encumbering me.
Then the body at the feet of Bruno of Torcadino ceased to move, and the blood subsided.
Bruno of Torcadino wiped his blade on the tunic of the fallen man and rehung it on its strap under his left arm.
I was sick. I did not try to regain my feet. I was bloody, from the blood of the man who had reached toward me earlier, knife in hand. I would not try to flee, to run, and try to return to the Golden Chain. I could not speak. I did not know how to reach the Golden Chain from my present location. My collar read, “I am owned by Bruno of Torcadino.”
I was grateful to be alive. I was grateful not to have been disfigured.
I became aware of Bruno of Torcadino standing over me. I went to my knees.
“You were aroused,” he said.
I put my head down.
“What a slave you are,” he said.
I kept my head down.
He then turned away.
“It is a good morning’s work,” he said. “I found them suitable donors, with none others then about.”
I looked up.
“Guardsmen rarely patrol this area,” he said. “I inquired. It is too dangerous.”
I then watched as Bruno of Torcadino, kneeling on one knee, in turn, beside each of the three men, gathered in the contents of the three purses. Then he, grasping the crutch, with an effort, hauled himself upright.
“I shall multiply these coins,” he said, “wagering on the dark contests, the Gambles of Blades.”
Bruno of Torcadino then, with foot and crutch, rolled the three bodies to the edge of the canal, and then, one by one, thrust them into the canal.
“They were brigands,” he said. “Honest men would have lighter purses.”
I supposed this might be true, but I did not think this consideration was such as might have entered into his calculations.
“Stand up,” he said.
I regained my feet, and he pulled up the rent tunic and knotted its shreds over my left shoulder.
“Returning to our domicile,” he said, “we will undoubtedly encounter, or pass, one or more free women. We must not cause them distress.”
I looked toward the canal and saw a roiling of water, some thirty or forty paces from where we stood.
He turned about.
“The urts are quick,” he said. “One or more of the bodies has been dragged away. See the water. Disputation is in progress. If a shark appears, they will withdraw and wait for its leavings.”
I shuddered.
“You are filthy,” he said, “with dirt and blood, and you will need a new tunic. In the domicile we will clean you up.”
I looked at him, and I fear he read my uneasiness.
“Yes,” he said, “you were aroused, and left unsatisfied. It is unpleasant. The feelings will pass but they will soon return again, and again, and more forcibly.”
How helpless we are in our collars. It is done to us. We are given no choice. They do what they wish. They kindle our slave fires. Does it amuse them? They do not ask us. They do it to us. They make us the helpless prisoners and victims of our needs. How fiercely, uncontrollably, they have our slave fires burn. How can we then, made whole, full, and true women, be other than their abject slaves? We are helpless. Yet I knew I would not wish to be other than I was.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
What Occurred After the Business by the Canal
I was in the apartment, the domicile, of Bruno of Torcadino. I had been well washed, my body and hair, and was freshly tunicked. I had been given a comb and brush, which I had put to extensive and welcome use. Such things, trivial as they seem, can mean much. A small blanket was near me, folded four times, on the floor. For that, too, I was grateful. I was not close-shackled, and my body, interestingly, bore but one bond, a loose chain, of some five feet in length, fastened to a slave ring in the floor.
It was the evening of the day in which Bruno of Torcadino, at the edge of the Canal of the Sea Sleen, had recouped his finances.
My food dish and water dish were to the side.
“I must plan,” said Bruno of Torcadino, standing near the door, in a just-donned long cloak. “I must see to things. Coins are to be multiplied. Now I will proceed forth.”
Seldom did Bruno of Torcadino leave me alone.
When he had done so, and I had thought him far distant, I might have screamed, and screamed, to attract attention, and plea for my return to safety, to the Golden Chain, but I could utter no sound.
He turned in the threshold. “I have seen to the assuagement of your torment,” he said.
I did not understand this.
The door closed, and Bruno of Torcadino had left the domicile. I heard him descend the stairs, the strokes of the mighty crutch gradually diminishing.
About a quarter of an Ahn later the door opened.
It was not Bruno of Torcadino.
“Get your tunic off,” said a voice. “Turn about, kneeling, your head to the floor, your hands clasped behind the back of your neck.”
I complied, instantly.
“This will do, to begin with,” said the voice.
When the figure had appeared in the threshold, I was startled and distraught. I could not cry out, from what had been done to me, days ago. But my lips had formed the word, “Master.” Had I been able to cry out, my cry, its wild sound, would have been “Master!” I had learned that, long ago. A slave girl does not address a free man by his name, but as “Master.” How dare she put the name of a free man on her lowly slave lips?
“This time,” said Addison Steele, “I need not waste a tarsk-bit on your worthless hide. This time you cost nothing. This time you are free.”
Chapter Twenty-Nine
We Arrive at the Skerry of Lars
“It is said,” said a fellow, “he is from the Farther Islands, say, Chios or Thera.”
“From Telnus, on Cos,” said another.
“Turia,” speculated another.
What cared I for the origins of some young mysterious swordsman? Such may rise, like a luminous sun, and, as soon, decline like a falling star. The heroes of blades come, and go, and seek out one another. So there can be one most noted swordsman, one blade faster and more cunning than all the others? Is this not as strange as the lore and fame of the checkered caste, the Players. Who cares if a Centius of Cos or a Scormus of Ar can push tiny pieces of wood about on a hundred-squared, red-and-yellow board better than ten hundred thousand others? Is it really so superior to the planting of suls and the harvesting of Tur-Pah, the fishing for eels or parsit, the shaping and smoothing of boards or the weaving and sewing of canvas? Who is the greatest of singers, or the finest master of line and color? Who is to say it? Yet in some games the matter is not so subjective. In kaissa a game is won, lost, or drawn, and it is clear which is the case. It is not a matter of saying; it is a matter of seeing. And, I fear, for those who are attracted to such things, outcomes are similarly clear in the games of steel. Each city has its first swordsman. Some, misguided youths or itinerant killers, will venture from city to city, from village to village, to seek out one whose reputation they covet and would own. One need only feign insult, and blades leap forth from sheaths. So one man can kill another? Is that so important? Is that so precious an accomplishment, a guerdon to be so earnestly sought? Should one not turn one’s back on so absurd a game, scorning its madness, and yet few Goreans care being denounced as cowards. Perhaps things would be different, but swordsmen have their followers, and followers demand their champions. How foolish men are. What does it matter that one might be the provably, indisputably best at one thing or another, in a city, on a continent, or on a world? How thoughtless, unquestioned, and cruel are the imperatives of vanity! What are the vanities of women, free or slave, compared to the vanities of men, and yet we are not without fault, for we watch, and the men know we watch.
This morning, at the Southern Gate, Bruno of Torcadino, I at his heels, leashed, and front-braceleted, had boarded a game ship for the Skerry of Lars, not really a skerry, but a small island five pasangs out in the Tamber Gulf, five pasangs beyond the laws of Port Kar. The tickets are cheap, presumably subsidized in part by the Skerry of Lars itself. And beasts such as I in my collar, with my marked thigh, are conveyed for half price. In the north, muchly distant, in the vicinity of Torvaldsland, and in the waters of Torvaldsland itself, small, isolated, uninhabited skerries are often used as dueling places. In the morning, usually in a small boat, the disputants or contestants are brought to the skerry with a serving of meat and drink. In the evening, the boat returns to the skerry for the survivor. It was doubtless this northern custom which suggested not only the naming of this small islet in the Tamber gulf, so near to Port Kar, but, presumably, the enterprise for which it was best known, the Gambles of Blades, sometimes referred to as the “dark contests.” The name, ‘Skerry of Lars’, was presumably chosen for its associations. As far as I know, none of the entrepreneurs associated with the enterprise are, or were, named ‘Lars’. That name is one familiar in Torvaldsland. Indeed, some claim there is an actual, historical Skerry of Lars off the coast of Torvaldsland. If that is so, its name would seem to have been borrowed.
