|
 PiratesThese are the relevant references from the Books where Pirates, Bandits, Buccaneers and Cutthroats are mentioned. I make no pronouncements on these matters, but report them as I find them. Arrive at your own conclusions. I wish you well, Fogaban Click a heading to jump down to that listing. Pirates Bandits Buccaneers Cutthroats
"No," admitted the warrior. "I am Kazrak of Port Kar," he said, "in the service of Mintar, of the Merchant Caste." I did not need to ask about Port Kar. It is a city in the delta of the Vosk and as much a den of pirates as anything else. The reason for this is not simply that here is a fine market for such wares, since men from various cities pass freely to and fro at the fair, but that each Gorean, whether male or female, is expected to see the Sardar Mountains, in honor of the Priest-Kings, at least once in his life, prior to his twenty-fifth year. Accordingly the pirates and outlaws who beset the trade routes to ambush and attack the caravans on the way to the fair, if successful, often have more than inanimate metals and cloths to reward their vicious labors. This pilgrimage to the Sardar, enjoined by the Priest-Kings of Initiates, undoubtedly plays its role in the distribution of beauty among the hostile cities of Gor. Whereas the males who accompany a caravan are often killed in its defense or driven off, this fate, fortunate or not, is seldom that of the caravan's women. It will be their sad lot to be stripped and fitted with the collars and chains of slave girls and forced to follow the wagons on foot to the fair, or if the caravan's tharlarions have been killed or driven off, they will carry its goods on their backs. Thus one practical effect of the edict of the Priest-Kings is that each Gorean girl must, at least once in her life, leave her walls and take the very serious risk of becoming a slave girl, perhaps the prize of a pirate or outlaw. To the Goreans it is always, simply, The Language, as though there were no others, and those who do not speak it are regarded immediately as barbarians. This sweet, fierce, liquid speech is the common bond that tends to hold together the Gorean world. It is the common property of the Administrator of Ar, a herdsman beside the Vosk, a peasant from Tor, a scribe from Thentis a metalworker from Tharna, a physician from Cos, a pirate from Port Kar, a warrior from Ko-ro-ba. And then, one day, like the pirates of Port Kar in their long galleys, unannounced, unexpected, Others would cross the seas of space and bring their craft to rest on the shores and sands of Gor. "I am not truly Tuchuk," said Elizabeth. "I am only a girl from the islands north of Cos, taken by pirates of Port Kar, sold to a tarnsman, carried to and sold again in the city of Turia, and hence for twenty boskhides traded to the Tuchuks, where I was ringed and branded." She was beautiful, and had been free; she was not trained; she was of the Scribes, and had been picked up by pirates from Port Kar. Port Kar, crowded, squalid, malignant, is sometimes referred to as the Tarn of the Sea. Her name is a synonym in Gorean for cruelty and piracy. I had heard the name of Surbus. It was well known among the pirate captains of Port Kar, scourge of gleaming Thassa. I threw down another burning swallow of the Paga. He was pirate indeed, and slaver, and murderer and thief, a cruel and worthless man, abominable, truly Port Kar. I felt little but disgust. I knew him to be pirate; and I knew him to be slaver, and a murderer, and thief; I knew him to be a cruel and worthless man, abominable, truly of Port Kar and, as I looked upon him, the filth and rottenness, I felt nothing but disgust. I looked upon him, Surbus, slaver, pirate, thief, murderer. He was pirate, slaver, thief, murderer. He was evil, totally evil, and I felt for him only disgust. Accordingly I, who had been Tarl Cabot, once a warrior of Ko-ro-ba, the Towers of the Morning, sat now in the council of these captains, merchant and pirate princes, the high oligarchs of squalid, malignant Port Kar, Scourge of Gleaming Thassa. Twice we had been scouted by pirates from Tyros, in their green ships, painted to resemble the sea, but neither of them had chosen to engage us. "I have less interest in piracy, I gather, than many of my colleagues," I said. "Since my interests are substantially in commerce I, for one, would welcome peace with Cos and Tyros. It seems not unlikely to me that these two powers may well be weary of war, as Samos informs us he is. If that is true, it seems they may well accept an honorable peace. Such a peace would, I note, open the ports of Tyros and Cos, and their allies and others, to my ships, and, of course, to yours. Peace, my captains, might well prove profitable." I regarded Samos. "If an offer of peace is to be made to Cos and Tyros," I said, "it is my hope that it would be genuine." It was now within the Fifth Passage Hand, some four months after the unsuccessful coup of Henrius Sevarius in the city of Port Kar. By this time, the Fifth Passage Hand, the flag of Bosk, pirate, had come to be much feared on Thassa. Green, on Thassa, is the color of pirates. Green hulls, sails, oars, even ropes. In the bright sun reflecting off the water, green is a color most difficult to detect on gleaming Thassa. The green ship, in the bright sun, can be almost invisible. Meanwhile, while I had been plying the trade of pirate, the military and political ventures of the Council itself, within the city, had proceeded well. I was Bosk, Pirate, Admiral of Port Kar, now perhaps one of the richest and most powerful men on Gor. Again I was Bosk, from the marshes, Pirate, Admiral of Port Kar. I looked from face to face, the great Thurnock, now calm, swift, strong Clitus, the shrewd oar-master, the others. Many of these men were cutthroats, killers, pirates. I wondered why they were in this room. I knew then we were within the territory of Ar, and must be high over the Margin of Desolation, a barren area, now recovering itself, which, years ago, had been cleared and devastated, that the northern fields of Ar by such a natural barrier, by such a wall of hunger and thirst, might be protected, presumably from invasion from the north or, more likely, from the incursions of Vosk pirates. In the reign of Marlenus, prior to his exile, and later, after his restoration, the Margin of Desolation had been deliberately left untended, that it might recover. Marlenus had set a swift fleet of light, Vosk galleys to clear the river waters adjoining his Ubarate of pirates. They had been successful, or muchly so. Seldom did Vosk pirates ply their trade where the Vosk bordered the regions of Ar. Samos himself was abroad upon Thassa, in ventures of piracy and enslavement, and it was through a subordinate that I was purchased. He had a large, squarish head, short-cropped white hair. His face was dark from the sun, and wind-burned, and sea-burned. There were small, golden rings in his ears. He was a pirate, a slaver, a master swordsman, a captain of Port Kar. Green is the color common to pirates. The bad blood between Tyros and Ar had primarily to do with Tyros' financings of Vosk pirates, to harry river shipping and the northern borders of Ar. Vosk pirates now little bothered the realm of Ar, but the memories remained. Vosk traffic, to Ar, which has no sea port, is important. It permits her much wider trade perimeters than would otherwise be possible. Something similar is true of the Cartius, far to her south. Unfortunately for Ar, or perhaps fortunately for the maritime powers of Thassa, it is almost impossible to bring a large ship or barge through the Vosk's delta to the sea. Ar remains substantially a land power, but the river traffic, on the Vosk and, to the south, on the Cartius, is important to her. Tyros' financing of Vosk pirates, over the past century, was an attempt to deprive Ar of the Vosk markets, and make those markets more dependent on overland shipments of goods, originally debarked at shore ports, brought to them by the cargo ships of Tyros, and other maritime powers. He was a pirate, and a cut-throat, but he was not unhappy in his death; he had died by the sword, which would have been his choice, and before he had died he had looked again upon the gleaming Thassa; I knew this man of Torvaldsland only by reputation. He was a rover, a great captain, a pirate, a trader, a warrior. Ivar Forkbeard, the unregenerate, the raider, the pirate, he who had dared to make the fist of the hammer over his ale, would come at last, in death if not in life, humbly to the temple of Priest-Kings. "Who," I asked myself, "is Hilda, the daughter of a barbarian, of a rude, uncouth northern pirate, living in a high wooden fortress, overlooking the sea, to so demean the perfumes of Ar?" I had heard there was fighting between Ar and Cos, it having to do with the alleged support by Cos accorded to Vosk pirates. I knew the waters of Thassa were plied by many ships, and, among them, were the ships of pirates. Cos and Ar, I had heard, were now at war, the matters having to do with the piracy on the Vosk not having been satisfactorily adjudicated. But Ar had no navy, though it did have a fleet of river ships that patrolled the Vosk. The ship might, of course, be of Port Kar, or of one of the northern ports, or even of Torvaldsland. I could not free my ankles, wrists and belly of their chains, which kept me, by their arrangement, on my knees. I was frightened. If the ship fell to pirates I, and the other girls, I knew, would fall helplessly to them too, lovely spoils, naked slave booty, to the victors. I had been brought there, bound and gagged, in a closed sack, in a lighter from the pirate ship. Port Kar is sometimes spoken of by her citizens as the Jewel of Thassa. Other men speak of her differently, rather as a den of thieves and cutthroats, a lair of pirates. Above us the hatch was closed. I heard it lock. I looked upward. I was in Sirik, fastened to a ring, chained in the hold of the Dorna, the ship of the dreaded pirate and slaver, Bosk of Port Kar. "Give me the necklace," said Bosk of Port Kar. Samos handed it to him. The pirate regarded it. "Note," said he, "That the frequency of yellow beads. Each third bead is yellow." It had been delayed because of the war between Ar and Cos, having to do with piracy and competitive commercial claims on the Vosk. The situation on the Vosk is further complicated by the presence of Vosk pirates and the rivalries of the river towns themselves. They must have known that she would be sailing from Cos to Schendi. This trip, particularly because of the depredations of pirates from Port Kar, is a hazardous one. I took passage for Schendi on the Blossoms of Telnus, a ship of Cos. We fell to pirates on the high seas. I think they were of Port Kar. We were boarded. Fighting was fierce but brief. Our ship was then theirs. I, and other women, placed in a net, were swung to the deck of the pirate ship. Ti is farthest from the confluence of the Olni and Vosk; downriver from Ti is Port Olni; these were the first two cities to form a league, originally intended for the control of river pirates and the protection of inland shipping; later, downriver from Port Olni, Vonda, and Lara, lying at the junction of the Olni and Vosk, joined the league. The Olni, for practical purposes, has been freed of river pirates. It is interesting to note that the control of piracy on the Olni was largely a function of the incorporation of Lara in the confederation. This made it difficult for the pirate fleets, following their raids, to descend the Olni and escape into the Vosk. "It is dangerous for merchant caravans," a man was saying. "Many have been attacked," said another. "It is rumored the river pirates are the worst," said another. "They grow bold with the withdrawal of troops from Lara. They have struck even into Lara herself, then withdrawing to their galleys." "Who are these people?" I asked one of the fellows near the cots. "Mostly merchants," said he. "These are the victims of the predations of river pirates in Lara." "Yes," said he. "They had not realized that the troops of Lara would be moving east, or that the brigands and pirates would move so boldly." Too, here and there in the city, river pirates, with impunity, sought women and plundered. Too, he had been, as I had ascertained, attacked by river pirates on the south bank of the Olni and, embattled, had bargained for his life and those of his men by delivering his goods and slaves to the assailants. "What do you conjecture," I asked, "to be the fate of your goods and slaves?" "They are no longer mine," he said. "They are now the property of the river pirates, theirs by the rights of sword and power." "That is true," I said. "But what do you conjecture is to be their fate?" "It is not likely they could be sold in Lara, or northward," he said. "Usually the river pirates sell their goods and captures somewhere along the river, in one of the numerous river towns." "What towns?" I asked. "There are dozens," he said. "Perhaps Ven, Port Cos, Iskander, Tafa, who knows." "He who attacked you, the pirate chieftain," I said, "who was he." "There are many bands of river pirates," he said. "I have nowhere to go," she said. "I am safe here. River pirates may still be within the city. It is not safe for me to be put out." "Do not leave the mat," I told her, getting up. I went to one of the narrow, barred windows in the inn. I saw five armed men running down the street. "River pirates," I said. "I think they must be." Several days ago I had departed from Lara. The troops from Ar, tarnsmen, had not burned Lara. Indeed, perhaps surprisingly, they had done little but clear the town of river pirates and, here and there, gather in a bit of loot and some women, mostly female refugees from Vonda who fell into their hands. For several weeks I had moved from one river town to the next, examining slave markets and attempting to obtain information on the whereabouts of the pirate, Kliomenes. Understandably I encountered few willing informants. Many people, I was sure, knew more of this fellow than they admitted. His name, and that of his captain, Policrates, were apparently feared on the river. These river pirates were not, it must be understood, a few scattered crews of cutthroats. I knew she had been taken recently, and by Kliomenes, the pirate. "It is well known on the river," he said. "What is well known?" I asked. "That Victoria is one of the major outlets for the merchandise of river pirates." "You mentioned," I said, "that this necklace had been taken from a free woman." "By a pirate," he said. "You speak of this openly," I observed. "This is Victoria," said he. "May I inquire as to what crew it was of which that pirate was a member?" I asked. "Are you familiar with a pirate named Kliomenes?" I asked. I hoped my voice did not betray undue interest. "He is Kliomenes, the pirate, lieutenant to Policrates," said Tasdron. The spring and summer are the busiest seasons, for these are the seasons of heaviest river traffic and, accordingly, the seasons when pirates, after their raids, are most likely to bring in their loot. Tonight my life had been saved by a dissolute fellow, a man called Callimachus, perhaps from Port Cos, farther west on the river, a derelict. Had it not been for him I would doubtless have been slain by the pirate, Kliomenes. "Do you recall me?" I asked. "Do you recall I was the fellow who challenged in this tavern, and who was threatened by Kliomenes, the pirate, the fellow who was saved, happily, by one called Callimachus." "Have you heard of the topaz?" I asked. "Yes," she said. "I heard people in the market speaking of it." "It is a pledge symbol," I said, "apparently used among pirates on the river, when combining for massive assaults." "Besides," I said, "obviously you were willing to reveal the location of the topaz with alacrity, as I had feared. It is important that it not reach Policrates. If it does, the major forces of the pirates of the eastern Vosk would achieve unification, at least for a time, with those of the western Vosk. "In my own tavern," said Tasdron, "he had difficulty with Kliomenes, the pirate. He could have been killed. That scarcely seems what one would expect from the courier of Ragnar Voskjard. Too, he does not seem skilled with the sword." I was startled to hear this name, for it was the name of he who had saved me, some weeks ago, from the steel of Kliomenes, the pirate. "Stand back," said the pirate. Two blades, his, and that of a companion, were leveled at my breast. "Beverly!" I said. My hand, palm sweating, was poised over the hilt of my sword. "Make no unfortunate move," said the pirate, he who had spoken to me before. "Be gone, Buffoon," said Kliomenes, not pleasantly. I felt again the points of the swords of the two pirates at my chest. "Is it also known how I withdrew from the tavern of Hibron, the Pirate's Chain, when I sought there the Lady Beverly?" I asked. "By now she doubtless wears the steel loops of a pirate's pleasure girl," she said. "The men of Victoria," I said, "seem adamant in refusing to pay the tribute to Policrates." "Yes, Master," she smiled. I thought this was courageous on their part, but I did not know if it were wise. It had been the first time in five years that this had happened. The last time the pirates of the dark stronghold had carried fire and sword to a dozen wharfed ships. The tribute, then, had been rapidly forthcoming. To be sure, in the past years the pirates had become more and more dependent on the markets of Victoria to dispose of their loot and captures. In the light of this many in Victoria regarded themselves as having at last attained a position in which they might succeed in evading the humiliating burdens of tribute. "Stand back, lest you be hurt!" cried a man. I was seized by two men, citizens, and dragged back into the encircling crowd. I was bleeding. My tunic was cut. The sword of the pirate, in a drunken swing, had grazed my chest. Other citizens, with ship poles, of the sort used on Gorean galleys in casting off and thrusting from the wharves, pressed back the crowd. I felt the side of the pole against my belly. I was jostled by the crowd. The pirate turned away, laughing. "Where are the guardsmen of Port Cos?" I asked. "Where are the guardsmen of Ar's Station?" There were several guardsmen, from each of these towns, in Victoria. There was smoke in the air. Five warehouses, and some ancillary buildings were afire. "They maintain their posts," said a man, grimly. "They protect their own headquarters." "Victoria is not their concern," said another, bitterly. I watched the pirates, perhaps some fifty or sixty of them, unchallenged, moving between warehouses and the wharves, where two pirate galleys were moored. Some townsfolk, at sword point, were loading goods onto the galleys. Some of the pirates bore torches. "The tribute will be paid by morning," said one of the men near me. I saw several of the pirates with bottles of paga, swilling from them, as they strutted about, sometimes pausing to cut into a bale of goods or overturn a barrel, kicking it open, permitting its contents to run out, over the boards. The alarm bar continued to ring futilely. The pirates made no effort to stop the desperate fellow who, meaninglessly, continued to strike it. "We outnumber them fifty to one," I said. "Let me rush upon them. Let us stop them!" "They are the masters in Victoria," said a man. "Do nothing rash." I heard a woman scream and saw her, thrown over the shoulder of a laughing pirate, a brawny fellow, being carried to one of the galleys. "What will be done with her?" whispered a woman, near me, terrified. "If she is beautiful," said a man near us, "perhaps she will be kept to serve in the stronghold of Policrates. If she is not, perhaps her throat will be cut." The woman gasped, her hand at her veil. The pirate threw the woman to his feet near the nearest galley and there stripped her and handed her to a comrade who stood on board the galley. He put her on the outside of the railing, facing outwards, with the small of her back tightly against it, her arms hooked over it, and behind it, as with the others. He then, with a length of binding fiber, running tight across her belly, fastened her wrists together, as he had similarly those of the others. All were well displayed. Too, the exposition of captures in this way tends to discourage retaliatory missile fire from the scene of the pillaging. The woman was comely. I did not think she would have her throat cut. Lusty men have better uses to which to put such women. I did think, however, that they would soon, all the captures, be marked and put in collars. "If I were you," said the man near the woman in the crowd, "I would draw back in the crowd and hide. Then I would flee." "But I am free," she said. "So, too, were they," said the man, angrily, gesturing to the bound woman at the railing of the pirate galley. She shrank back, suddenly frightened. I saw Kliomenes, some seventy yards away, directing his "You there, Female," called a pirate, his eye roaming the crowd, "step forth!" The men holding the ship's pole, frightened, lowered it. "Step forth!" said the pirate. The woman shook her head, pressing back against the men. "Unhood her, face-strip her," ordered the pirate. "Protect me, save me, please," she begged. Her hood was thrust back. Her veil was torn away. She was lovely. The price she would bring would be good. I wondered why such a woman would come to the wharves in a time of such danger. Surely she must have understood the peril to which she would be exposing herself. "Step forth, Beauty," said the pirate. Numbly, she approached him. I made to move, but two men restrained me. Swiftly, before us all, in the light of the flames, was the woman stripped by the pirate's blade. "Lie down," said he. She hesitated, and looked at him in anguish. "Or do you wish to be slit like a larma?" he asked. His sword jabbed into the sweet roundedness of her belly. Swiftly, then, she lay at his feet, her back on the harsh, tarred boards. The pirate then looked at us, and laughed. "Here, at my feet, supine, stripped, is a free woman of Victoria. Do any of you dispute her with me?" Two men restrained me. No others moved. "Kneel," he ordered the woman. She did so. He then placed the point of his blade against her fair throat. Numbly, slowly, lifting her arms, the blade between her arms, her fingers trembling, she tied the bondage knot in her own hair. She looked at him. "Please, spare me, Master," she said. For a long moment or two the point of the blade remained at her throat, as the pirate considered the girl's plea. I saw his eye roam her now-imbonded curves. He laughed. He thrust his blade back in its sheath. She almost fainted with relief. "On your feet!" he said. "Run to the nearest galley! Beg to be displayed there, as the loot you are!" "Yes, Master!" she cried and, leaping up, fled toward the galley, a commanded slave. "We do what we wish with Victoria," said the pirate. "Do any of you gainsay me?" None spoke. He then laughed again, and, turning about, went back toward the galleys. I had seen a free woman of Victoria stripped with no more mercy than would have been shown to a slave. I had seen her kneel naked before a pirate and, his blade at her throat, with her own hands, tie the knot of bondage in her hair, in full view of hundreds of her fellow citizens. "At the wharves," I said, "there were pirates, few more than half a hundred of such men, under the command of Kliomenes, lieutenant to Policrates." "I have seen Glyco, a merchant, a high merchant, of Port Cos, these several days in earnest converse with you. I think, surely, that he, fearing the union of the pirates of the east and west, was entreating you to lend support to some scheme of resistance." "It is said," I said, "that the pirates own Victoria." There was then silence in the hall. The pirates, feasting at the low tables, stopped eating, and watched. "Grapes, Master?" said a soft, feminine voice near to me. I looked about, but I did not react. It was the free woman, or the woman who had been free, who had been ordered from the crowd on the wharves of Victoria. I recalled her having been stripped by the pirate, and his blade at her throat. "Kliomenes fell in with her at the tavern of Hibron, the Pirate's Chain, in Victoria," he said. There was more applause. Then the brute looked to Policrates, who indicated a table. He then pulled the girl to her feet and, running her over the tiles, and then releasing the coils from her neck, threw her stumbling into the arms of waiting pirates who, with a cry of pleasure, seized her and began to work their lusty wills upon her. There was more applause, and laughter. I picked up my things at the door. I slung them about me. I donned my mask. There was a knock on the door, and I opened it. A pirate stood there, he who had brought Beverly to me last night, who had now come to fetch me to breakfast. I must soon leave the holding of Policrates, theoretically to journey downriver to the holding of Ragnar Voskjard, that his fleet might be soon launched, that the two fleets, in fierce force, might overwhelm the garrisons of Ar's Station, and then of Port Cos, that the river, for hundreds of pasangs, would then become theirs, subject to their predations or levied tributes as they saw fit. I nodded to the pirate, indicating my readiness to accompany him. He looked beyond me, to the slave ring. The girl now knelt there, cuffed to the ring. He seemed startled. "Is it Beverly?" he asked. The girl, suddenly, shrank back against the stone of the couch, a slave's movement. Curious, the pirate brushed past me, going to the girl. He crouched down beside her. "It is Beverly," he said. She trembled. He put forth his hand, touching her at the shoulder. She shuddered beneath his touch, putting down her head. "What have you done to her?" he asked, grinning. "Last night she was an enslaved female. This morning she is a female slave." He put forth his hand and held her, with one hand, his fingers about her chin and throat. She shuddered. "I would say," he grinned, "that she is now more truly aware of her condition, that you have much improved her." He did not remove his hand from her throat and chin. "Were you much improved last night, Beverly?" he asked. We looked back upon her. It was a superb slave who knelt there. Miss Henderson, in the night, I saw, now clearly, remembering her from the evening before, had been brought to a new dimension in her slavery. The pirate laughed. The girl shrank back against the stone of the couch. The snaps on the cuffs rubbed against the slave ring. The pirate then walked slowly towards her. She cowered back, fearing to be struck. He stopped, standing before her. She lifted her head to him but was, of course, unable to see him, prevented with perfection from doing so by the efficiency of the Gorean blindfold. She squirmed in the cuffs, unable to see, in a slave's fear. The pirate stood looking at her, his hands on his hips. Every inch of her was beautiful, and enslaved. She would now be a dream of pleasure for any man. "Who owns you?" he asked. "Policrates," she said. "And more generally," he said, "who owns you?" "Men," she said. The pirate then turned about and rejoined me, by the door. He then went through the door, and I was to follow him. I did turn about, once, to look again upon the girl. "Master!" she cried out to me, piteously, in the darkness of the blindfold, stretching her small cuffed hands, as she could, entreatingly, toward me. "Master! Master!" "Glyco, to whom I have spoken, being a merchant of Port Cos, can meet openly with Callisthenes without arousing suspicion. There will be no difficulty, thus, in bringing Callisthenes to our meeting. The matter, however, will be otherwise with Aemilianus. It is unlikely that he can be subtly contacted. Here there is danger. He, like Callisthenes, is doubtless under surveillance by spies of pirates." "It is now dangerous to travel on the river," I said. "River pirates are now bold and active." Perhaps they knew, too, of my outspoken displeasure at the wharves when the pirates had looted and burned there, punishing Victoria for having at that time refused their demands for tribute. With some of these fellows I had drunk, and worked. "I cannot gainsay it," I said. I had learned in the stronghold of Policrates, the pirate, that the beautiful Miss Henderson was, in her heart, a slave among slaves. It was not inappropriate, thus, but quite appropriate, that she had been subjected to merciless slave rape. "With all due respect," I said, "pirates, and those in league with them, are not noted for their honor." She was, after all, a woman of Earth. Later, of course, she had been captured by Kliomenes, the lieutenant to Policrates, the pirate, and taken to the stronghold of Policrates. "It was forged in Cos, in a thousand lengths," said Glyco, "and brought overland, around the delta, and on galleys east from Turmus. Its mountings and pylons were mostly done at night. It lies west of Port Cos, that we may be protected from the pirates." "Surely Port Cos will find some benefits in being spared the predations of pirates," said Callisthenes. "It is a foolish plan," said Callisthenes. "You would surely be discovered. Spies abound. The pirates are well informed, I am certain." "Only we in this room know of this possibility," I said. "Discuss your plan with Aemilianus," suggested Callisthenes. "The pirates of the eastern Vosk are more your concern than mine. The chain will keep the pirates of the western Vosk out of the waters of Port Cos." "I do not wish to risk several ships and hundreds of men in such an unusual venture," said Aemilianus. "Besides, how do I know this is not a pirate trick to lure the fleet of Ar's Station into an ambush in cramped waters?" "You have my word on it," said Callimachus, "the word of a warrior." "Perhaps you, too, have been fooled," said Aemilianus. "I must think of the security of my men and my ships." Aemilianus looked at me. "Are you of Ar?" he asked. "No," I said. "Are you of the Warriors?" he asked. "No," I said. Aemilianus spread his hands. "How then," he asked the others, "in so great a matter, can I trust him?" "You must do so," urged Tasdron. "Do so," urged Glyco. "Why should you undertake such risks?" Aemilianus asked me. "There is a girl, a slave, I want in the stronghold of Policrates," I said. "You would undergo these risks, these dangers," he asked, "for a girl?" "I desire her," I said. "I want to own her." "Is that all?" he asked. I shrugged. "Too," I said, "I have scores to settle with pirates." Twice I had been demeaned by pirates, once in the tavern of Tasdron, and once in the Pirate's Chain, the tavern of Hibron. "The plan is not only dangerous," said Callisthenes, "and I would not risk men or ships of Port Cos in such a rash scheme, but it is, at least as far as preventing the gathering of the river pirates goes, unnecessary. The chain will keep the pirates of the west to the west of Port Cos." "The chain will be ineffective," reiterated Glyco, miserably. "It will be quite effective," said Callisthenes. "A chain can be forged, a chain can be cut," I said. "The chain is patrolled, of course," said Callisthenes. "Too, should there be any massing of pirate ships, we can meet them with the fleet of Port Cos." "Captain, Callisthenes," said I, "surely the pirates, as you yourself have suggested, are well informed." "It seems they know anything that occurs on the river," he admitted. "If that be the case," I said, "surely the forging of the chain, or at least its transport to Turmus, and later to Port Cos, and the time and effort spent in preparing its mountings, joining the lengths, and setting the chain in place, must have been known to the pirates." "Supposedly this was done in secrecy," said Callisthenes, "but I think there is little doubt they must have understood what was being done. Indeed, I have heard that there are rumors of the work in various of the western towns, in Turmus and Ven, in Tetrapoli and Tala." "Indeed," smiled Glyco. "We have even received a protest from Ven in the council." "On the assumption that the pirates understood what was occurring," I said to Callisthenes, "does it not seem strange to you that they made no effort to interfere with the placing of the chain?" "It was guarded, of course," said Callisthenes. "But no effort, even a small one, or one in force or desperation, by steel or by guile, was made to prevent its placing?" "None, at least to my knowledge," said Callisthenes. "You yourself are presumably well informed," I said. "I trust so," said Callisthenes. "Does this lack of opposition or interference on the part of pirates as powerful and well organized as those of Ragnar Voskjard not seem puzzling to you?" She, nude, kneeling, the blade of the pirate at her throat, had tied the knot of bondage in her own hair. She had been ordered then to the galley, to be bound there as an exposed slave, to be taken to the stronghold of her masters. The bit of yellow silk lay partly on one stair and, descending gracefully, partly on another. It took the edge of the stair beautifully, for such silk is very fine. It reveals even the subtlest lineaments of that to which it clings. It is slave silk. I could see the graining of the marble through the silk. The girl now began to kiss at my left foot and leg. She kissed well. I saw that she belonged in a collar. It was too bad, I thought, that that discovery had first been made by pirates and not by strong free men, before whom pirates might quail. But free men, I knew, were often too simple or ignorant to gather up the unclaimed booty which might lie about them, even though such booty might beg piteously to serve, and to be taken into their homes, to be treasured. It is not easy always, of course, to recognize a slave who wears the robes and veils of concealment; the identification becomes simple, of course, once she has been put in a collar and slave tunic. It is said on Gor that the garments of a free woman are designed to conceal a woman's slavery, whereas the accouterments and garments of a slave, such as the brand and collar, the tunic or Ta-Teera, are made to reveal it. "You are Jason, of Victoria, are you not?" inquired Policrates. "Yes," I said. Kliomenes stood beside the curule chair of Policrates. He was smiling. Four or five of Policrates' cutthroats stood about, with their arms folded. About the curule chair of Policrates, nestling about his feet, and on the stairs about the chair, were several of his girls. Most were nude, but some were silked, or clad otherwise revealingly, as befitted the wenches of pirates. Some wore threads of leather, another a bit of rope, another only her chains. Some of these wenches I remembered from the feast. There were dark-haired Relia and blond Tela, who was still kept in white silk, as a joke, though she must have served the pleasure of pirates a thousand times; and the blond sisters from Cos, Mira and Tala; short, dark-haired Bikkie; the girls who had danced at the feast, and had been thrown to the aroused men at the conclusion of their performances; and certain others. Most, however, I did not know, or recognize. Men such as Policrates are rich in women, as well as in gold. It could have been done with simplicity in the privacy, in the secrecy, of an alcove, her head to a pirate's feet. "Yes, my Master," said the pirate's slave. "He is Jason, from Victoria. Once he was of Earth, as I, your slave." "Cease your lying!" cried the pirate. "Put your back into it!" "Push!" cried the pirate. "Push, push! Move!" called the pirate. The lash struck amongst us. "Work, work!" called the pirate. "Work!" But he did not strike us again. The weights were now in motion. There is little to amuse one in the chamber of the windlass, save, I suppose, eating and drinking, and dreams. There is a shallow trough for water, cut in the stone, near one wall, where we would be chained when not working. This is filled twice daily. Too, at the wall, we would be thrown crusts of bread, and scraps of meat and fruit, usually the garbage of the feasts of pirates, our captors. "Do not slack, you Sleen," said the pirate, snapping his whip. "Work! Work!" "Keep moving," caned the pirate. "Hold!" called the pirate. "The gate is soon to be closed," said the pirate. "Liar!" screamed the pirate. "I have warned you about your lies!" "Lower the gate!" we heard a man call. "Lower the gate!" Then, far above us, and to the right of the windlass chamber, angry, entering out onto a small balcony extending into the chamber, a balcony reached through a guardroom, we saw a pirate. "What is going on down there?" he called. "Nothing!" called the pirate who had been striking me. "Did you not hear the signal?" called the man on the balcony. The pirate with us glared at me, in fury. He loosened the holding pawl. Immediately we felt the stress in the windlass poles. "Pay attention, you fool," called the man on the balcony. "Listen! Get the gate down!" "Lower the gate!" cried the pirate with us, angrily. "Hurry, you fools!" We felt the bars pulling against our arms and, slowly, with effort, as the weights ascended, permitted the descent of the gate. Then the gate was down. I met the eyes of the pirate. He looked at me, in fury. I looked down, as though frightened. "Why have I been brought here, Captain?" I asked the pirate at my side, who had conducted me to the tiles of the hall. It was he who was commonly in charge of the workers at the windlass. "Please, no, Captain," I said. "Be silent," he said, grinning. "Yes, Captain," I said. The collar and chain which had fastened me to the windlass pole had been removed from my neck, but I wore still, on my wrists and ankles, the other chains from the room of the windlass. "What is next?" inquired Kliomenes. "The disposition of loot," said a pirate. The pirate behind the girl, who had thrust her forward, un-knotted the cord from her throat, that which held the cloth over her head and kept it fixed, too, upon her body. She could probably see somewhat through the cloth, but not well. There seemed something familiar about her. The pirate drew the cloth away from the slave. He dropped it behind her. She knelt. I stepped back. It was she who had once been the Lady Florence of Vonda. I knew her now, of course, as Florence, who was, or had been, the slave of Miles of Vonda. To be sure, she was delicious loot. "She is pretty," said Kliomenes. "Yes," said the pirate. "You were to escort the Tamira back to the vicinity of the chain," said Kliomenes, regarding the pirate who had presented the loot before him. "How is it that you dallied enroute to engage in more prosaic transactions?" "It was gold lying on the sand, fruit ripe to be plucked," shrugged the pirate. "The Tamira is carrying the signs and countersigns, as you know," said Kliomenes. "They are safe," the pirate assured him. "What is the Tamira?" I asked the pirate next to me. "The scout ship of Ragnar Voskjard," said he. I had assumed this must be the case. I myself, in my unsuccessful ruse, betrayed, presumably by the Earth-girl slave, Peggy, had posed as a commander of scout ships, supposedly sent ahead by the fleet of Ragnar Voskjard. Now, it seemed, so soon, the actual ship, or ships, though it now seemed there was only one, had appeared, conducted its business, and was now returning westward on the river, presumably to rendezvous with the Voskjard. That a single ship had been involved suggested a certain complacency on the part of the western pirates. Had they truly so little to fear? "The chain has not yet been cut?" I asked. I gathered that it had not been cut from the nature of the conversation I had heard. On the other hand, it seemed puzzling to me how the Voskjard's scout ship could have appeared in these waters if the chain had not been cut. "No," said the pirate next to me. "How could she have crossed the chain?" I asked. "A single ship, posing as a merchantman, not inspected, it was not difficult," he said. "The chain was opened for her?" I asked. "As it is for honest ships," said the man. He grinned. "She experienced no difficulties?" I asked. "We have friends at the chain," said the pirate. "Is this," he asked, "truly an equal division of the spoils of the Flower of Siba?" "We have something of the better of it, in my opinion," said the pirate before the dais. "I see," said Kliomenes. "Not much of great value is currently moving on the river," said the pirate. "Men are frightened. Most of the loot is being kept in the towns." "Once joined with the Voskjard," said Kliomenes, "we can fetch it forth from the towns, as it pleases us." "True, Captain," said the pirate. Kliomenes smiled, addressed as Captain, though within the holding of Policrates. "Put the coins, the jewelry, the pearls in the general coffers," said Kliomenes. The pirate before the dais signaled to some men and they removed the coins, the jewelry and pearls from before the dais. "And what of this?" asked the pirate before the dais, taking the girl by the hair and forcing her head up and back, bending then her body back, so as to reveal the bow of her enslaved beauty. Kliomenes regarded the girl, musingly. "The values of many things," he said, "seem patent, but not the value of a slave." He gestated that the pirate should release her, and he did so. The girl then knelt, looking at him. "Are you only beautiful, my dear?" he asked. She put down her head, sobbing. "Keep her in the holding," said Kliomenes. "I myself shall assess her tonight." The girl, then, in her chains, was dragged sobbing from his presence. Kliomenes then looked at me, and I was thrust forward, stumbling, toward the dais. Unbidden, I knelt. There was laughter from the pirates in the room. I was the last item on his agenda for the morning. He had saved me for last. "I should have slain you long ago, in the tavern of Tasdron, in Victoria," said Kliomenes. "Forgive me, Captain," I said, head down. "I understand that you are a braggart, and a liar," said Kliomenes. "No, no, Captain," I said, hastily. "He maintains," said the pirate who had conducted me to the room, he normally in charge of the crews of the windlass, "that he deceived both you and Policrates, and us all, by posing as the courier of Ragnar Voskjard." "Are you so desperate for status among your fellow sleen," asked Kliomenes, "that you will risk such lies in this place?" I kept my head down. I seemed to tremble. "You warned him, did you not?" inquired Kliomenes, of my guard. "Many times, Kliomenes," said the man. "But even this morning he persisted in these assertions, thinking I was not within that distance wherein I might detect his boasts." "I see," said Kliomenes. "Too, yesterday," said the man, "he spoke disparagingly of you." "What did he say?" inquired Kliomenes, amused. "He spoke of you - as a dolt," said the pirate. There was laughter from among the men present. Now, I noted, lifting my head, that Kliomenes did not seem amused. There was resentment of Kliomenes, and jealousy, and fear, I suspected, in the holding. There were perhaps others present who would not have minded usurping his lieutenancy to Policrates. Kliomenes looked about the room, and the laughter instantly faded. "That is indeed amusing," said Kliomenes, returning his attention to me. "Forgive me, Captain," I begged. "The courier, or he who posed as the courier of Ragnar Voskjard, though not my equal, was not unskilled with the sword," said Kliomenes. "Forgive me, Captain," I begged. "Do not slay him, Kliomenes," said one of the men near the curule chair, "for he might be of use in bargaining for the freedom of the true courier of Ragnar Voskjard, who must have been captured by our enemies in Victoria." "They would not exchange so valuable a man for this worthless fellow, a dock worker," said Kliomenes. "Wait for Policrates," said the man, "Let him make decision on this matter." "In the absence of Policrates," said Kliomenes, "I am first in the holding." "I do not contest that," said the man, stepping back, angrily. Kliomenes again looked at me. "Thus," said he, "if you are truly he who posed as the courier of the Voskjard, you, too, must be not unskilled with the sword." "Forgive me, Captain," I begged. "Put a sword in his hand," said Kliomenes. The fellow near me, who had brought me to the room, withdrew his blade from its sheath. He held it to me, hilt first. "No," I said, "no!" "Take it," said Kliomenes, evenly. I took the blade by the hilt, in one chained wrist. I took care to hold it improperly. I held it as though it might have been a hammer, and too close to its guard, which would, of course, in actual swordplay, impair its mobility considerably. Two or three of the men laughed. Kliomenes then rested back in his curule chair. He had been watching closely. He was a vain and arrogant man, but he was no fool. He had not won his way to the lieutenancy of Policrates by being stupid. "Can you not kill me as I am, in my chains?" I asked. "Must you mock me?" "Take him outside," said Kliomenes, rising, and stretching. "Please, Captain, one favor," I begged, "one favor." "What?" asked Kliomenes, puzzled. "Do not let those of the windlass room know what was done to me," I begged. "Bring them, in their chains, outside," said Kliomenes, to my guard, "that they may observe what is done to this fellow." "No, Captain, please!" I begged. But, already, two men were pulling me by the arms from the room. I blinked against the light of the sun. I felt the chains on my wrists and ankles being removed. Armed men surrounded me. In one hand I still clutched, with apparent ineptness, and as though in fear, the sword which I had been commanded to take from the pirate. "Lucky parry," said one of the pirates. "There is no Callimachus to rescue you now, Dolt," said Kliomenes, measuring me, the point of his blade moving subtly, a yard or so from my chest. Then, again, the blade struck, swift as an ost, toward me. "The dock worker is fortunate," said one of the pirates. "He is afraid," said one of the pirates. "Release him," said one of the pirates. "You cannot escape." My steel was then to the back of Kliomenes. "Precede me to the parapets," I told him. "Do not follow," I warned the pirates. "That will not be necessary!" he said. He turned, then, and preceded me about the walkway bordering the lakelike courtyard. I looked back and saw the group of pirates. They did not follow. They stood near the iron door, the entry into the inner holding. Their steel lay still about their feet. "Glyco," I pointed out, "has enlisted your aid against the pirates." "He is not with the fleet," said Callimachus. "He is now east on the river, trying to raise support for our cause," I said. "Perhaps," said Callimachus. "But no ships have been forthcoming." "I do not think Glyco will be successful," I said. "There is too much distrust among the towns, and they fear the pirates too much. Too, the fleet of Policrates is now east of Victoria, to prevent such ships from reinforcing us. I have told you this." Callimachus was silent. "Why is it not obvious to you that the traitor was the slave, Peggy?" I asked. "She could not have heard," said Callimachus, uncertainly, angrily. "She was in the room," I said. "She must have heard. She is not stupid, though she is a slave. She could have understood much of what we planned. Doubtless she revealed our plans to the courier of Ragnar Voskjard, or to a pirate in Tasdron's tavern, perhaps while moaning with pleasure in his arms, hoping to win her freedom by her treachery." Callimachus was silent. "Why is it not obvious to you that the traitor was the slave, Peggy?" I asked. "She could not have heard," said Callimachus, uncertainly, angrily. "She was in the room," I said. "She must have heard. She is not stupid, though she is a slave. She could have understood much of what we planned. Doubtless she revealed our plans to the courier of Ragnar Voskjard, or to a pirate in Tasdron's tavern, perhaps while moaning with pleasure in his arms, hoping to win her freedom by her treachery." There was a cheer behind me. At the chain, settling back, its concave bow lifted fully from the water, its stern awash, was a pirate galley. Men were in the water. Beyond this ship, too, there was another pirate galley, crippled, listing. I could see, even as he spoke, several of the pirate vessels drawing back, abeam of the chain, but far enough behind it to prevent our ram from reaching them. Off our port bow we saw one of the pirate vessels slip beneath the muddy waters of the Vosk, a kill of the Mira. Small boats again approached the chain. We edged forward again. A raking of arrows hailed upon our deck, many bristling then, too, in the stem castle. "Bowmen!" called Callimachus. We spent a shower of arrows at the nearest longboat. Two men fell from the boat into the water. Other men dove free into the river, swimming back about the bow of the nearest pirate vessel. Arrows lanced into the heavy wicker but, though several pierced it by a foot, they did little damage. The shafts were caught in the heavy wicker. Too, now, from the pirates' galleys, protecting their longboats, there sped a fierce counter-fire. The wicker shields of our own archers were now bristling with feathers and wood. A heavy stone broke away the railing of the stern castle of the Tina. "Closer! Closer!" called Callimachus. I heard the hiss and snap of our catapults, the twisted ropes snapping loose. When the largest one fired I could feel the reaction in the deck boards beneath my feet. Flaming pitch was flung at close quarters. Arrows traversed the air in swift menace. An arm suddenly appeared over the bulwark. Then a man, wet, scrambled aboard. I met him with the sword and, grappling, kicking, I forced him back overboard. Burning pitch spattering and exploding out of a clay vessel skidded across the deck. I could hear battle horns to port and starboard. Not more than a dozen feet away I could see a pirate longboat behind the chain, protected by wicker shields. Stones and pitch, at point-blank range, pounded and exploded between ships. I could see, clearly, the eyes of pirates, no more than a few feet away, we separated from them by the chain, and a few feet of water. A man rose from behind the bulwarks of the enemy vessel, bow in hand. Then he was reeling back, an arrow in his chest. I heard the chain scraping at the side of the Tina, then the shearing blade on our starboard side, swinging to starboard, struck the wood of a longboat. We slid along the chain, then, the oars on our starboard side striking loose the wicker shielding of another longboat, too close to the chain, and spilling men into the water. I saw pirates, on the galley opposite, shaking their fists at us. The pirate vessels, too, had withdrawn from the chain. It was near the tenth Ahn, the Gorean noon. "Do you not wonder, sometimes," asked he, "why honest men, honest folk, such as ourselves, permit pirates, and such, to exist?" "Why?" I asked. "That we may have someone to kill," he said. "Are we so different from them, then?" I asked. "I do not think so," said Callimachus. "We have much in common with them." "What?" I asked. "That we are men," said Callimachus. "It is not the killing," I said, "for executions would not suffice." "No," said Callimachus, "it is the sport, and the risk, and the killing." "One must fight for causes," I said. "Causes exist," said Callimachus, "that men may fight." "I am troubled," I said. "Extinguish the lanterns," said Callimachus to a fellow. "The pirates may still be about." "Let us put down the longboat," I said to Callimachus. "With muffled oars we may patrol our sector of the chain." "Why would you do this?" he asked. "Our vessel, even with the lanterns extinguished, cannot approach the chain as silently as a longboat. The pirate boats, at the chain, need only draw back." "The longboat," said Callimachus, "should be west of the chain, that it may approach the pirate boats less suspiciously." "Ready," I said to the men with me, softly. We approached the chain from the west. The longboat had been put down across the chain, the Tina abeam of it, a quarter of an Ahn ago. We had actually passed within a few yards of pirate vessels, anchored in the river. "Who is there?" called the voice. "Now!" I said. Five men, behind the gunnels, suddenly rose up, bows in hand. The arrows were discharged at almost point-blank range into the other boat, as we struck against it. I heard men scream, tools cast down. I and five others, swords drawn, boarded the other craft, hacking and slashing about us. We did not speak. The cries, the screams, were those of the pirates. More than one saved himself by leaping into the water. I thrust the body of another over a thwart, and then rolled it, sprawling, over the gunnel into the water. I saw no point in attacking. The element of surprise was no longer with us. We had taken three longboats in the night. That there was danger at the chain was now well understood by the pirates. They had thought to work with impunity, and had found that we had not chosen to permit it. "If the Voskjard should join with Policrates," said another man, "and the forces of Port Cos and Ar's Station are divided, no town on the river will be safe." "Pirates will own the Vosk," said another man. We were hailed by men in pirate vessels, as we passed near them, but we did not respond. As we came about a pirate galley knifed towards us. "To starboard!" cried Callimachus. Then he cried, "Oars inboard!" Her ram missed us. Her port shearing blade tore at our strakes. "Oars outboard!" called Callimachus. "Come about!" The two ships had slid past one another. As the ships passed I had looked into the eyes of a pirate. He had not been more than five feet from me. Here and there, at the chain, again and again, pirate galleys were striking at the great links, and then backing away, and then again, patiently, renewing their attack. "Doubtless they are hammering at points where they know the chain was weakened in the night," said a man near me. He had been with me in the longboat last night. "Yes," I said. "Look there!" I pointed to one of the truncated pylons rising out of the river. It had been splashed with yellow paint. "Catapults!" called Callimachus. Two stones looped into the air and then, gracefully, began their descent toward one of the pirate ships. Huge spumes of water rose into the air as the great rocks plunged into the Vosk. "Bowmen!" called Callimachus. We neared the first of the galleys and flighted arrows toward her. She drew back. "There are others," said a man. We moved along the chain. We came upon the wreckage of a pirate galley, broken in two, deserted. It had broken, attempting to ride over the chain. "There is a pirate galley behind us, a pasang back, lying to!" called out a man, aft on the stern castle. We would be divided, handicapped in our attempts to reinforce and support one another. Divided, hunted, we could be herded, and surrounded. We might then make good sport for the pirates. The Voskjard had been held at the chain in the south. I did not think that this would have pleased him. I did not expect that prisoners would be taken. "Now!" cried Callimachus. There are three poles which, customarily, with Gorean ships are used in casting off, in thrusting away from the wharves. There were, of course, three such poles on the Tina and on the Mira. Our oars were inboard. Suddenly, as the enemy galley veered to knife between us, and the Mira men with poles, and, too, with oars, on our ship, and on the Mira, thrust the ships apart. There was a shattering and a scraping but the enemy galley, which had thought with force to press us apart, meeting little resistance was, by her momentum, almost immediately astern of us. Almost simultaneously other men, on the Tina and Mira, with ropes and grappling irons, drew the ships more closely together. The two ships following the first galley had intended to follow her into our line, exploiting the breach. But now there was no breach. The point of the wedge, harmlessly, save for splinters and paint torn from our hull, was behind us. The two supporting ships ground their hulls together. Burning pitch and arrows rained upon their decks. I heard rams clash to port and starboard. Then one of the supporting galleys was struck in the stern by a following ship, unable to check its momentum. The pirate galleys began to back oars, frantically to extricate themselves, but, clumsily, half swung about, they must accept our fire. I saw a pirate galley slip under the water, near the chain. I kicked back, screaming, the face that thrust itself over the gunnels. With the blade I slashed down, cutting the rope taut on the grappling hook caught over the wood. I thrust twice, driving back pirates. One of my feet was on the Tina. The other was on the railing of the pirate vessel. Others, too, stood between the ships. Others stood on the decks of their own vessels, thrusting and cutting, stabbing, over the bulwarks. Men on the Tina, using loose oars as levers, were trying to pry the ships apart. There was a screaming of metal as shearing blades, locked together, protested the stresses imposed upon them by the shifting ships. The port shearing blade of the pirate vessel was torn, splintering strakes, from its hull. Our starboard shearing blade, that great crescent of iron, some seven feet in height, some five inches in width, was bent oddly askew. It had been turned like tin. A man next to me fell, reaching out, clutching, grasping, between the ships. He screamed. Then he was lost among the splinters of oars and the grinding of the hulls. The bowman, below me on the deck, and to my left, unleashed an arrow, at point-blank range across the gunnels. I could not follow its flight. Only the blood at the pirate's throat marked its passage. The shaft itself was lost somewhere behind, among the screaming men. I leaped onto the deck of the pirate vessel, slashing about myself. A spear thrust from behind tore through the side of my tunic. I twisted away, hacking passage. Then pirates thrust forward and I felt them sweeping about me. They pressed toward the rail. I turned. They did not even realize, in the heat of battle, in the confusion, that I was not of their number. I nearly struck, by accident, an oarsman from the Tina, too on the pirate's vessel. As pirates swarmed toward our ship we cut at the backs of their necks. I saw the fellow I had nearly struck board the Tina, literally with the pirates. He struck a defender's pike away from himself. Then he cut at the pirates to his left and right. Then he was again on the deck of the Tina. Then he had turned and was fighting the pirates. I heard timbers creak. Pirates were at the stern castle of the Tina. We had ten or more men fighting on the pirate vessel in the vicinity of her stern castle. I cut two more of the ropes attached to grappling hooks. "Rogue!" cried a fellow. I turned to face him. We crossed swords five times. His blood was on me. With two hands, grunting, I jerked the sword from his body. Ribbing snapped. It had been a clumsy stroke. Callimachus would not have been pleased. I lifted my head, wildly. The ships were now drifting apart. They were held close only at the sterns. I smelled fire. I saw a man on the Tina plunge backward, his hands clutching at an arrow protruding from his forehead. In two steps I climbed the archer's platform and leaped behind the blind. I passed my blade into the fellow's body, and he fell, turning, from the platform, arrows spilling, like rattling sticks, to the deck. A pirate leaped toward me and I cut him from the platform. Arrows sped toward me, two of them, and caught, tearing, in the wicker. Behind me I could see another pirate vessel looming. Near the stern castle I saw some of my fellows cutting through pirates. Burning pitch flamed upon the deck. "This way, Lads!" I called, leaping down from the archer's platform. An arrow struck into the deck at my feet. We sped down the deck. The ship shuddered as the great catapult loosed a stone which shattered into the rowing frame on the port side of the Tina. In moments I and the others, now some seven men, cutting at pirates, severing ropes, separated the two vessels and, as they slipped loose of one another, leaped onto the stern of the Tina, falling upon the pirates who had boarded her there. The pirates, pressed by our defenders, and attacked now from their own vessel, fought for their lives. We forced them to the railing, and over it, those who were not cut down, into the Vosk. Pirates crowded to the rails of their ships. I saw grappling irons, on their lines, hurled over the bulwarks of the Portia. But almost at the same time the planked constructions, on their platforms, were pulled downward by ropes. These constructions, some twenty-five feet in length, and some seven feet in width, as the pirates mattered back in their path, crashed downward, their great bent spikes shattering into the decking of the pirate ships, anchoring the ships together, yet holding them some seven or eight feet apart. At the same time battle horns of Ar sounded from the galley and hatches were thrown open. The pirates, startled, unable to reach the ship, stood confused along their railings. "Infantrymen of Ar!" cried a man on the Tina. Out of the opened hatches poured warriors of Ar, grimly helmeted, bearing great, rounded shields and mighty spears, bronze-headed and tapering. Pirates rushed to the planked road bearing ingress to their ship, but a dozen spears, and then another dozen, hurled by running men devastated resistance, and then, on the run, swords drawn, their shields struck by arrows, buffeting, slashing, driving men into the water, the soldiers of Ar rushed over the bridges linking the ships. Half turned toward the stem of the vessel and half to the stern. The pirates' lines, thin, strung out for boarding, were instantly cut. Vicious and swift, clean, exact, merciless, was the steel of professional warriors. In moments had the decks of both pirate vessels been cleared. And still soldiers emerged from the hold. In all, I had little doubt that they outnumbered the pirates eleven or twelve to one. The spacious hold of the Portia had been crammed with men. "It was an infantry battle," said a man beside me, in awe. "But it was fought at sea," said another. We watched the great planked constructions being pried up from the decks of the pirate ships. We saw flags of Ar's Station being run out upon their stem-castle lines. I clung to a piece of wreckage. A man clung, too, to the other end of the section of plank. I did not know if he were a pirate or not. Through a gap in the pirate fleet, I could see that the beleaguered, desperate ships of the defenders fought on, stoutly. I was convinced that they, still active, pennons still flying on their stem-castle lines, could hold out until nightfall. Yet I did not think they could withstand the concerted attacks of the pirate fleets for another day. How nobly, and well, they had fought. I was bitter. I looked back to the berth. There, tied upon it, helpless, was she who had been the woman of a pirate captain, she who had been the woman of one of my enemies. I then looked again out the window. In the water, among the larger ships, were small boats, manned by pirates. Considering them I became furious. These were being used to hunt for survivors, luckless fellows, struggling in the water, fishing for them with attentive leisure, with arrows, and with spear and knife. They would also make it difficult to return to the Tina. I glanced to the table, to the packet, now in its oilcloth envelope, which lay there. It had immense value, if only it could be exploited. I looked again, out the window, at the ships of the pirate fleet, and at the defenders, and then I returned to the table, and sat before it. "Master," said the girl. I did not respond to her. "Forgive me, Master," she whispered. That the defenders had lasted this long was a function largely of two factors, first, of the crowding of the pirate fleet which made it difficult for them to bring their rams and shearing blades into play, and, secondly, the unusually large numbers, and skill, of the soldiers of Ar who had been transported in the holds of the ships of Ar's Station, making boarding hazardous and costly. It was at this time that I heard the signal horns of the pirate fleet. The orders, I thought, had been too long delayed. I looked out the window. As I had thought the pirate fleet was now drawing back. The self-frustrating futility of their attack, obstinate and unimaginative, had, at long last, apparently been brought home to its commander. The pirate ships now, sent forward judiciously, singly or doubly, supported as need be, no longer crowded together in useless attempts at boarding, could now bring their rams and shearing blades into play against the cornered, pathetically outnumbered barks of the defenders. But it was now quite late in the afternoon. Doubtless this attack would be postponed until morning, that the slaughter might lose nothing of its effect, some survivors perhaps being enabled, in small boats or in the water, to slip away under the cover of darkness. We could hear the shouting, as though of a pirate victory, coming from over the water. "He was left here to kill those, not of the pirates, who might seek refuge in the hulk of the Tuka," she said. "He killed five," she said. I remembered, then, the ship I had heard of, shortly before entering the hold of the Tuka, that which had been identified as a derelict, one presumably drifting downriver, lost from the confusion of the night, illuminated by our diversion of the burning Olivia, a pasang or so to the east. She had perhaps been struck by one of the pirate ships, or perhaps, earlier, a casualty from a previous day, had come loose from one of the bars in the river. Free women are not often found in the vicinity of pirates. After a free woman has once been at the prow, there is nothing to do with her later, of course, but to make her a slave. On the Tuka the rowers were singing, lustily. They wore an odd assortment of garbs. Insignia had been torn from clothing. Crests had been ripped from helmets, identificatory devices pried from the convex surfaces of shields. It was not a song of Ar they sang, but a river song, a song of pirates and brawlers, "The Ten Maids of Hammerfest," in which is recounted the fates which befell these lovely lasses. On the night of our escape from our encirclement on the river, we had set afire the Olivia, our slowest and clumsiest ship, and directed her eastward against the enemy's shifting lines, opened and disarranged by the departure of the Tamira from her position. This, we had hoped, would create a diversion, and lead the pirates, in the confusion and darkness, to assume that we were moving eastward, and that the Olivia had been set aflame by their own forces. We had then lain to, in the movement of ships, pennons of the Voskjard on our lines, should we fall within the light of passing lanterns. We had then withdrawn west to the chain, where we had salvaged the Tuka. At this point the Tamira, which had tenaciously kept with us, and despairing of support, desperately attacked. She had fallen prey to the swift Tais. Twice struck, she had soon sunk. Our speculations in this matter proved correct and we used this break in the chain to move to its western side. Before we had left the vicinity of the encounter between the Tais and the Tamira, I had called loudly, as though to Callimachus, "We have made good our immediate escape! Let us hasten now to Tetrapoli, where our safety most securely may be sought!" There had been an answering cheer from the crew of the Tina, to which cheer the men, upon our signal, gave vent. This ruse, of course, was for the benefit of survivors of the Tamira, still in the water about, clinging to wreckage. When picked up by the vessels of the pirate fleet, turning westward, having discovered the ruse of the Olivia, they would report what they had heard. To be sure, I did not think this small, second ruse was truly necessary. It would be assumed by those of the pirate fleet that we, if we could make it west of the chain, would surely fly to one of the western towns for refuge. Tetrapoli is the first major town west of the chain. It would never occur to them, nor probably even to Reginald, captain of the Tamira, if he had survived the clash with the Tais, what might be the true nature of our intentions. At the least we would wish to garner a large force, one sufficient to exploit any possible advantage which might accrue to us in virtue of our possession of the documents stolen from the Tamira. By the time such a force might be raised in the river towns, of course, the fleet of the Voskjard would have reached the holding of Policrates, reinforced it, and participated in the development of new security arrangements. Too, I did not think Reginald would be eager to report that the documents had been stolen from his own ship, before its loss to the Tais. Now, if he had survived the clash with the Tais, he could always maintain that the documents had been lost with the ship, in his bold and ill-fated attempt to prevent our escape. I had little doubt that he would find it preferable to be commended for gallantry than cut to pieces for an inadvertent lapse or negligence. We had little doubt that we would be pursued first, mistakenly, northwestward toward Tetrapoli. While vessels followed our putative course, and the balance of the pirate fleet, regrouping and repairing injuries, waited upon their return, we sped, in alternating shifts, day and night, toward the holding of Policrates. There was a cheer from the pirates on the walls. Kliomenes spoke to someone beside him. That man signaled another man, near the west gate tower. He, in turn, called out to another, apparently within the tower. Kliomenes stepped back from the wall. Aemilianus, followed by men, moved swiftly, past startled pirates, toward the iron door. "Hold, hold there!" cried Kliomenes, suddenly. He had seen Callimachus and myself. "There are spies among you!" he cried. Then the sword of Miles of Vonda was at his throat. "Order your men to throw down their arms!" said Miles of Vonda. My sword then, too, threatened him, at his belly. The arms of Kliomenes were pinned behind him by two men. Slave girls screamed. Baskets of petals fell to the walk. They shrank back against the wall, armed men moving past them. "Throw down your arms," called Miles of Vonda to the pirates on the walk, "or you are dead men." "Throw down your arms!" called Kliomenes, hoarsely. We saw Aemilianus, followed by a file of men, thrust through the iron door. Beyond it, almost instantly, we heard shouts, and then some swordplay, and running feet. Callimachus, followed by his file of men, raced up the steps toward the walls. I saw two pirates, cut from the steps, fall twisting and striking against stone to the sea yard below. A pirate leapt past me and fled down the walk. I pursued him. Then ahead of him another ship was at the walk's edge. "The Tais!" cried the pirate. Men leapt from her rail, ahead of him. He threw down his sword. I moved past him, through the men of the Tais, toward the wall. No pirates must escape. I raced toward the wall's height. Swordplay there was sharp. I cut one man from the wall. I thrust a man through who was climbing through an opening in the parapet. I cut my way through men and swords. I saw, to my alarm, pirates in the water, in the sea yard, swimming toward the gate. I forced my way into the west gate tower. I struck the sword from the hand of the pirate within and spun him about, seizing him by the neck. I thrust him toward the interior balcony, that opening into the chamber of the windlass. "Order the lowering of the gate, the plunging lowering of the gate!" I said. "Lower the gate," he cried. "Loose the gate! Loose the gate!" Cries of dismay rose from the water below, within the sea yard. With a rattling thunder of chain and iron the huge gate splashed downward into the water, its bars entering and anchoring themselves in their deep, subsurface sockets. "We surrender!" called the pirates on the wall. Swords were flung down. I put my prisoner with the rest. From the wall's height I could see the walk near the holding crowded with our men, emerged from the holds of the Tuka and Tina. The fleet of Policrates, as I knew, some forty ships, was abroad, to prevent reinforcements from the eastern towns, should they appear, from proceeding westward to assist at the defense of the chain. Accordingly, within the fortress, under the command of Kliomenes, only a small force had been left, some two hundred to two hundred and fifty men. These would have been sufficient to hold the fortress against a significant attack, but, once the enemy, in numbers, as we were, were within, the defense of the holding would be a lost cause. It is not common on the part of pirates to pamper their slaves. "Pirates have excellent taste in slave flesh," I said. Some, however, had been put in little more than twists of torn rags, such as those on the body of the auburn-haired beauty in which Miles of Vonda had seemed to take an interest and on the body of the small, exquisite brunet of whom I had deigned to take note. I gathered that the pirates had enjoyed setting off their beauty in this fashion. "Yes, Jason," said the man, hurrying downward from the wall. Kliomenes had spent a good part of yesterday, and the night, with certain other pirates, chained, in rags, at the windlass. His appearance on the wall, Callimachus and I had speculated, might allay suspicions in the advancing fleet. "The pits in the fortress have been prepared?" inquired Callimachus of one of his officers. "Yes, Captain," said the man. More than one hundred captured pirates had been drafted to this work, after which, in chains, they had been thrust, packed, with others, into cells, below the holding. I had, indeed, earlier speculated from pirate strategies, that the fleet had been under the command not of the Voskjard, but of a lesser man. We gave orders and the great gate began to rise. This time, in the room of the windlass, however, it was pirates who labored to lift that mighty weight. She, Lola, with another of my slaves, Shirley, I was keeping, for my convenience, in the central room of the slave quarters, with the captured beauties of the pirates. These latter girls, such as the auburn-haired beauty in whom Miles of Vonda was interested, and the small brunet in whom I had some interest, were in ignorance as to what their disposition would be. This was appropriate. They were slaves. I saw the lead galley drawing alongside the walk near the fortress wall, across the sea yard. Mooring lines were made fast. Pirates disembarked. "You will never be successful," snarled Kliomenes. "Stand back on the ramparts," I said, "that the stern impediments locked upon your ankles not be visible." He stepped back a foot. "Smile, and wave," I encouraged him, "unless you wish to die." He smiled and waved. I saw Reginald and Alcibron wave to him, from the walk across the sea yard. He who had been the courier of Ragnar Voskjard looked about himself, suspiciously, and then, with the others, entered the holding. Inside, in a previously prepared room, on a great table, were aligned two hundred goblets of wine. Each contained Tassa powder. When the pirates, unsuspecting, were within, and giving themselves to the wine, the door would be locked. Other vessels, too, were now being moored at the walk, and others, following them, were being tied up alongside the first. In a short time the sea yard, if all went well, would be almost filled with vessels. In such close harborage it would be possible to walk across the sea yard, moving from deck to deck. More than two hundred pirates had now been welcomed and encouraged within the holding. Later crews, now, in smaller groups, in single file, would be conducted deeply within the holding. There, by larger numbers, the smaller groups would be disarmed, beaten and hurled into waiting, smooth-sided capture pits, prepared earlier by the captured pirates of Kliomenes. Narrow corridors, too, and blind passages, suddenly shut off by barred barricades, through which arrows might be fired by our men, served a similar purpose. Caught within, as helpless as penned vulos, subject vulnerably to the pleasure of our archers, pirates would surrender, stripping themselves and submitting themselves, one by one, to our chains. "There must be twenty ships in the yard," I said. "It goes well," said Callimachus. Suddenly, reeling, his sword bloody, I saw he who had been the courier of Ragnar Voskjard, his clothing torn, emerge wildly from the interior of the holding. "Go back! Go back!" he screamed. "It is a trap!" Pirates looked at him; puzzled. Already pirates, their weapons discarded, were kneeling before our men. "Captain," said an officer, coming up to report to Callimachus, "in the marshes the battle is done. Fifteen pirate ships have been destroyed. Many pirates have been killed or captured. Some twelve to fifteen ships escaped. Too, other pirates have fled into the marshes." I followed Callimachus up the stairs to the height of the wall. There was no possibility of our tricking Policrates, of course, as we had Alcibron and Reginald, and the others. Escaped pirates would only too quickly inform him of what had occurred. Too, smoke from burning ships, from the sea yard, and in the channel, climbed skyward. "It is as I had anticipated," said Policrates, beside him. Pirates, disembarking from the flagship, filed past them. I heard jokes about the women of Victoria, and how they would please the pirates this night. I sobbed in frustration, bound upon the great, curved blade. I had underestimated the skills of my captors. Though the ropes were thick and coarse, they were tight, and well knotted. The pirates had not intended me to escape. Thus, they had tied me well. Such men, I realized, angrily, were experienced in the tying of men, as well as women. Yet they were neither warriors nor guardsmen; they had not used binding fiber; and I was strong. Again I struggled and then, again, ceased struggling, sick, gasping and held. I had, in my struggles, moved my body down some inches on the blade. By lifting my head I could see ahead, painfully, to the concourse. There the pirates, at the edge of the concourse, some hundred yards from the office of the wharf master, set back on the concourse, had gathered, preparatory to their attack on the town. I could see the broad, lateral width of the concourse behind them. It was empty. The docks seemed deserted. Victoria, I then suspected, had been abandoned, left to the wrath of the vengeful reavers of the river. Then, at that very instant from atop the frame building housing the office of the wharf master the alarm bar began to ring. I saw a single man on the roof, striking it with a great hammer. It rang again, and again. The pirates turned, startled, puzzled, to regard the source of the sound. Almost at that very moment, from the seemingly deserted buildings of Victoria, running and screaming, charging, brandishing an incredible assortment of chains, tools and weapons, there issued hundreds of the outraged citizens of Victoria. Archers sprang into view on the rooftops. Showers of arrows sped like dark, linear hail over the heads of the charging citizens, striking into the startled, suddenly reeling, disordered crowds of pirates at the foot of the concourse. But a moment later the charging citizens, like thundering, horned kailiauk, like uncontrolled, maddened, stampeding bosk, pikes and spears leveled, chains flailing, swords flashing, boat hooks, and axes and shovels upraised, struck the dumbfounded, disarrayed throngs of astonished buccaneers. A cheer rose spontaneously from my throat. "Fight!" I heard Policrates scream. "Fight!" I saw a pirate being strangled with a chain. I saw a flailing chain, doubled, tear a pirate's head half from his body. Shovels slashed down at pirates. Pikes stabbed and cut. Spears thrust. I saw a pirate fall over the body of another pirate, who had been struck with an arrow. An outraged citizen thrust down, driving the vertically mounted point of a boat hook into the fellow's face. An instant later he had caught another pirate by the neck, with the horizontally mounted hook on the staff and pulled him backward. Another citizen thrust his sword into the fellow's belly. The archers had now left the rooftops to hurry to the melee, that they might, at point-blank range, pick targets. I saw some five pirates thrust back off the edge of the concourse into the water. An ax split the side of the hamlet open of another pirate. Still more citizens were running forth, from buildings, from further down the wharves, with spears and swords. "On!" I cried. "On for Victoria!" "Fight! Stand! Fight!" screamed Policrates. I saw a dozen pirates break and run for their ships. I struggled on the blade. In a frenzy I tried to free myself. But I could not do so. I was helpless. I had been tied by Gorean men. A man ran past me, hurrying to the ship. "Stand, fight!" I heard Policrates screaming. I saw him strike a pirate in the back of the neck with his sword, cutting his head half from his body, who had turned to run. "Stand, fight!" he screamed. A dozen more pirates, here and there, in their ragged lines, turned about and broke for their ships. Then a dozen more! "Withdraw!" shouted Policrates. "Back to the ships!" "Back to the ships!" called Ragnar Voskjard. "Back to the ships!" called Kliomenes. "Back to the ships!" called Callisthenes. Men were now hurrying past me. Some were bloody, and wounded. Swords slashed down at the mooring ropes. I felt the flagship of Policrates shift in the water. Men were fighting on the wharf now. Men behind me, I heard clamber aboard. I did not know whether or not they could board a crew. Policrates himself ran past me, and Kliomenes and Callisthenes. I heard them leaping to the bulwarks of the ship and clambering aboard. "Poles!" shouted Policrates. "Oars outboard!" I could see the pirate ship to my left, across the wharf, moored on the opposite side, its mooring ropes cut, backing away from the wharf. Then the ship on which I was bound, poles thrusting against the wharf, slid to my right and backward. A pirate running for the ship missed the bow rail and fell into the water. He began to thrash and scream in the water, attacked by eels. I looked down, into the water. Below me the water was swarming with eels. The blood from my back, I realized, running down the blade and dripping into the water, had attracted them. The wharves, now, were crowded with men. Pirates fell into the water. Others, in the rearward ranks, who could turn, did so, and fled toward the ships. Some ran past me and apparently leaped to oars, trying to hold them and use them to clamber aboard. I heard a man scream, struck, behind me. "Do not encumber the oars!" cried Policrates. I heard a body slide into the water behind me. An outjutting oar struck against the wharf. I heard another body strike the water. Then the ship was out from the wharf. I saw pirates throwing down their weapons, and kneeling on the wharf. There was cheering from the men of Victoria. "Well done, Lads!" I called. "Well done!" "We shall return!" screamed Policrates to the wharves. "You have not heard the last of us! We're coming back, you sleen! We're coming back!" Then the stern of the ship struck against another pirate galley, trying to extricate itself from the press of ships. "Get that fool out of the way!" screamed Policrates. Arrows, wrapped with oil-soaked, flaming rags, struck against the ship. The bow swung about, eccentrically. Below me, swirling in the water, I could see eels. "Back oars!" screamed Policrates. "Back oars!" cried Kliomenes. "Extinguish the fires!" cried Callisthenes. There was another heavy, grating noise as the stern of the ship was struck again, by another pirate vessel. Blood flowed down the blade to which I was bound, yet I was almost incognizant of this, so elated I was. On the wharves I could see kneeling pirates, being stripped and bound. They were, too, being roped together by the neck. I did not think that they would find the citizens of Victoria indulgent captors. They would be treated little better than slave girls. The flagship of Policrates was now, unimpeded, backing into open water. I sawed apart the rope joining my wrists on the cutting edge of the great blade. I heard battle horns. I did not understand this. On the wharves and along the waterfront I could see hundreds of citizens of Victoria. They were waving and brandishing their weapons. Pirates, naked and bound, roped together by the neck, lay on their bellies before them. A ship to my left, Spined Tharlarion, the flagship of Ragnar Voskjard, was aflame. I heard a ram strike a ship nearby, with a great splintering of wood. This made no sense to me, for the pirate ships, so closely packed, so struggling, could not, even by accident, have achieved the momentum for such an impact. Smoke stung my nostrils. I clung to the blade. The flagship of Policrates was now swinging about. I heard more battle horns, from both upriver and downriver. I heard the devastating impact of yet another ram pounding into a hull somewhere. There was screaming from pirate ships. I drew the sword from the wood and leaped down to the deck. The flagship of Policrates rocked, struck by another pirate ship, it lurching to port. I lost my footing, and then regained it. I ran to the starboard rail and leaped down to the starboard shearing blade. "Jason!" cried Callimachus, bound upon it. In an instant I had severed the bonds which held his ankles and, holding his arms, cut apart the ropes that bound his wrists. He drew himself, trembling, to the blade mount. "You are free," he said. "What is going on?" "The towns are rising," I said. "They come from the east and the west, from upriver and downriver, with men and ships. In their heart is war. Policrates and the Voskjard are finished!" "Get me a sword!" said Callimachus. "Are you strong enough?" I asked. "There is little you need do." "A sword!" said Callimachus. "I must have a sword!" I grinned. "Doubtless one may be found on deck," I said. Scarcely had we climbed to the deck than the pirate ship to starboard, shifting, grated laterally along the flagship. The shearing blades locked and we felt timber being torn from the sides of the ships. "Back oars!" screamed Policrates, on the stem castle. "Back oars!" We heard a pirate ship, somewhere to starboard, being boarded. Two pirates leapt overboard, on the port side. The alarm bar was ringing in Victoria, but now in token of victory. There were crowds upon the concourse. Garlanded, white-clad maidens could be seen. At the front edge of the concourse, near the wharves, pirates, in rows, stripped and bound, lay on their bellies. Maidens cast flowers upon them, and some of these maidens, from their own heads, placed garlands upon the brows of the victors. "Listen closely, Kliomenes," I told him. "You will be able to hear, from the wharves at Victoria, the ringing of a hammer, pounding on iron, on an anvil. Do you hear it?" "Yes," he said. "They are curving collars of iron, with chains attached, about the throats of your fellow pirates." I could hear, too, from the wharves of Victoria, the ringing of the hammer, closing links of chain and curving collars of iron about the throats of helpless pirates. "I had brought her a drink of water," I said. "I had set the price for this favor as my having of her." This had occurred long ago, when I had been a silk slave, owned by the Lady Florence of Vonda. I had, myself, later captured my mistress, and sold her into slavery. She belonged now to Miles of Vonda, who had helped us in our work with the pirates, part of the spoils, as many other slave girls, taken from the holding of Policrates. The slaves in the holding, as I recalled, many of them former free women, had been quite beautiful. I well remember one of them, in slave steel, a small, exquisite brunet, who had knelt before me, lifting fruit cupped in her hands for my delectation, and, in this, of course, as the pirates wished, presenting herself as well for my survey and consideration. Later she had been sent to my room. She paused and then, again, after a time, began to speak. "Later," she said, "courting slavery, for which I yearned in my heart, I went to the tavern of Hibron in Victoria, called the Pirate's Chain. "They are beautiful," said Glyco, the merchant of Port Cos to whom we owed so much. It was he who, in effect, had organized the resistance of the river towns to the pirates, and had had the good sense and fortune to recruit the redoubtable Callimachus of Port Cos as his field commander, a man without whose military skills and reputation on the river our projects might have been doomed to failure. I watched Shirley, the blond, voluptuous slave whom I had taken from Reginald, of the Tamira, in the battle on the river. She was one of three women whom I had had following our victory over the pirates, the other two being Lola and the former Miss Henderson. "The Vosk League," smiled Tasdron, "is a simple league, whose intent it is merely to control piracy on the river." "Victoria was centrally involved in the resistance to the pirates," said Aemilianus. "Have the pirates been disposed of, suitably?" I asked Tasdron. "Yes," said Tasdron. "We divided them among various wholesalers, with the understanding that no more than one of them will be sold in any given market, in any given city or town, or village or fair. Thus they will be well scattered, and distributed, over all known Gor." "I see," I said. Policrates, Kliomenes and Callisthenes, and such men, branded and collared, would soon be owned slaves, laboring for masters. There are many uses for such slaves. They can be purchased for work chains, to be rented out by their masters, sometimes marched between cities, depending on the seasons and the work available. They can serve, too, in such places as the mines, the quarries and great farms. "The topaz!" said Calliodorus. "What you do not know," said Tasdron, "is that long ago, over a century ago, this stone, unbroken, was the Home Stone of Victoria." We were startled. There was silence in the room. "Over a hundred years ago," said Tasdron, "it was carried away by pirates, and broken. Since that time Victoria has not had a Home Stone. What had once been our Home Stone served then as nothing more than a pledge symbol among the buccaneers of the river. In a few days we of the council of Victoria will go down to the river. There, from the shore of the Vosk, we shall select a common stone, not much unlike others. That, then, shall be the new Home Stone of Victoria." Samos cleared his throat. He was not much pleased to speak first, but he would do it. Like many slavers and pirates, Samos was, basically, a good fellow. "Ah, yes," she said, "I know you fellows of Port Kar. You are all rogues, all pirates, thieves and slavers. I think I shall call you - Brinlar." "From the northwest, near Thassa," I said. I saw no reason to tell her I was from Port Kar. She might then have become not feignedly, but actually, alarmed. Most of the fellows of Port Kar have something of the ruthless lust of pirates in their view of females, coupled with some knowledge, because of a popular form of commerce in the city, of sophisticated techniques of slave handling and management. The three men looked at one another, and then backed away. They would not choose to do business with one who carried a Home Stone, even though they were three to two. It was as I had speculated. They were road pirates. To be sure, in virtue of their mutual distrust of Ar, Cos and the Salerian Confederation normally maintained close relations, and the Vosk League, a confederation of towns along the Vosk, originally formed, like the Salerian Confederation on the Olni, to control river piracy, was, at least in theory, independent of both Ar and Cos. Ar's Station, although it was apparently active in the altercations with pirates on the Vosk, never joined the league. "I do not understand what is going on," I said. "What is all this about a topaz?" "You are then indeed a stranger to Ar's Station, and to the river," said a fellow. "The pledge of the topaz was originally an agreement between river pirates, a pledge of mutual assistance and, in crisis, alliance, between them, those of the eastern and western Vosk, between Policrates in the east and Ragnar Voskjard in the west. When the ports of the river, and their men, rose up against the predations, the tolls and tributes, of these pirates, the topaz fell into the hands of the victorious rebels. From such fighting came the formation of the Vosk League." I knew something of the Vosk League. Its headquarters was in the town of Victoria, on the northern bank of the Vosk, between Fina and Tafa. Due to its patrols and presence piracy, and certainly large-scale, institutionalized piracy, had been largely removed from the Vosk, from east of White Water, near Lara, a town of the Salerian Confederation at the confluence of the Vosk and Olni, to the delta. "But a topaz is a stone," I said, "a kind of semiprecious stone," "And such a stone is the symbol of the pledge," said the fellow. "It was originally a quite unusual stone, one which bore in its markings and coloration a remarkable configuration, that of a river galley. The stone was broken, however, into two pieces. One does not see the ship in the separate parts of the stone for the isolated marks and colorings seem meaningless. When the parts are joined, however, the ship appears. One part of the stone was originally held by Ragnar Voskjard, chief of pirates in the west, and the other by Policrates, chief of pirates in the east. Each, when in need of counsel or support, would send his part of the stone to the other. They would then join forces." "Both Port Cos and Ar's Station fought on the river, in terrible and bloody battles, hull to hull. After the final victor over the pirates, which took place at Victoria in 10,127 C.A. the parts of the stone came into the keeping of Calliodorus, a that time acting first captain in Port Cos, and Aemilianus who was at that time commander of the naval forces of Ar' Station. The pledge was renewed privately between them, think, as comrades in arms, as Ar's Station was not permitted by Ar to join the Vosk League." "Surely a polity, even if it be one of pirates, if it is to survive, if it is to protect itself, must establish some forms of justice and law within its own precincts?" But in spite of the invitation seemingly flagrantly offered by Policrates, the camp commander, general of the Cosian forces in the north, said once to have been a pirate, rescued from the galleys by Myron, Polemarkos of Temos, a cousin to Lurius of Jad, Ubar of Cos, the forces of Ar had not struck, even to restrict or harass foragers. "Worse than Ar's Station," laughed a fellow. "That is a den of cutthroats and pirates!" "In Port Kar," I said, "there is a Home Stone." Their every move in the delta, for days, had probably been reported to the Cosian commander, perhaps Policrates himself, said once to have been a pirate, by tarn scouts. "I have never really thought about it," I said. "Some of us, of course, are jolly fellows, at least upon occasion." To be sure the general reputation of Port Kar was that of a den of thieves, a lair of cutthroats and pirates. On the other hand, there was now a Home Stone in the city. Some folks might not even know that. "No," I said. "I am of Port Kar." "It is a lair of pirates," said a fellow, "a den of cutthroats." For example, I am not of the slavers, but in Port Kar I am known as Bosk, and he known as many things, among them pirate and slaver. "One I met long ago, when I was mercenary tarnsman," said Terence. "I was in Port Kar." "A den of thieves, a lair of pirates," said the pit master. The men clasped hands, and embraced, and then Bosk of Port Kar, Port Kar a port on the Tamber Gulf, rumored to be a den of cutthroats and pirates, and Marcus, of Ar's Station, once an outpost of Ar on the distant Vosk, took their leave. Had she not been so, in one way or another, in her dreams, on the smooth, scarlet tiles of a conqueror's palace, on the deep-piled rug within the tent of a desert chieftain, on the deck of a pirate's vessel? To be sure, brigands, pirates, enemies, and such, are not likely to concern themselves with challenges, but are rather the more likely, as they see fit, to attack, and kill. I now suspected the meaning of the signal smoke near the bow of the round ship, and why she had recalled her longboat, had swung about and unfurled her sail. Presumably, her lookout had espied, far to her starboard, another sail. Gorean ships seldom approach one another, and when they do, it is likely that one or both have piracy or war on their mind. "The ribbons will tell," I said. They were green. That suggested Port Kar. Thassa, the sea, is generally green. Indeed, pirates commonly painted their ships green, to make them less discernible at sea, certainly while under oars, with the masts lowered. Larger galleys, rogues from the coastal ports, not signatory to the imposed treaties, or, more dangerously, pirates or merchantmen from Port Kar, our enemy, detected, would be reported to Telnus, in theory to be intercepted, if possible, on their return to their home ports. Odd that a Cosian long ship, another Cosian long ship, would be in these waters. The ship, reassuringly, was not green, for pirates often paint their ships green, that they be the less seen on mighty, rolling Thassa. Many of the vessels of Port Kar, that den of thieves and cutthroats, that scourge of Thassa, were green, almost invisible, under oars, low in the water, the mast down. Also, they might be launched, if one wished, to dispose of witnesses, a practice favored by some pirates, or, as noted, to pick up survivors, following an action. I was thus, I supposed, the captive of pirates, for pirate crews are often diversely origined, often recruited from a medley of cast-offs, fugitives, ruffians, murderers, brigands, and such. "I fear the islands," she said. "There are pirates," I said. It was a pirate crew, mixed, without Home Stones, and such, I had speculated earlier. "Do you think we are pirates?" asked Lord Nishida. "Yes," I said. This confirmed my suspicion that I was in the midst of pirates. "Five days ago," said Seremides, addressing himself to the seeming rabble about, "without provocation, we were attacked by Cosian pirates, who attempted to burn our ship. We fought. We resisted. We conquered. Then we punished. Those who did not drown were executed, with but one exception, the sleen before you who was mistakenly spared, who should have been bloodied and given to Thassa's hungry children, an offering to her justice, that he not soil our ship with his unclean, impenitent, criminal presence." "My name is Callias," I said. "My Home Stone is that of Jad, on Cos. Perhaps some of you share her Home Stone with me. I was an oarsman on the Cosian patrol ship, the Metioche, out of Telnus. We are not pirates. You were in Cosian waters. We pursued you, investigating. We fired on you in self-defense. If any have been wronged here it is surely we, and not you. I think a mountain has little to fear from a pebble, a draft tharlarion from a stable urt." But amongst them as well were landless men, younger sons, men without Home Stones, bandits, pirates, adventurers, soldiers of fortune, thieves, fugitives, wanted men, cutthroats, fugitives from Ar, such as Seremides, and others. Had these lines of skilled, hardened men, selected with care by the Pani, veterans, mercenaries, killers, bandits, brigands, and pirates, from enlisted crews, rural gangs, disbanded cohorts, and scattered free companies, not checked the enemy, few if any of our forces would have escaped death. On the other hand, many, it is said, "court the collar," and it seems to be the case that "free captures," in their hundreds or thousands, as in the wars, the raids of slavers, the seizures of caravans, the depredations of pirates, the fall of cities, and such, once collared, once owned, find fulfillments until then no more than suspected. Ships sent to the mouth of the Alexandra had discovered nothing, and some apparently had fallen to pirates. "There is peace now in the local waters," said Captain Nakamura, "save for occasional pirates." On Gor, on this world, you are known to the bandit and pirate, Tarl Cabot, and doubtless others, and might, in our interest, well exploit and utilize the bonds of friendship and trust. "We will be carried there, and, stripped, shackled, and lashed, sold in her markets!" wailed another. "To pirates and cutthroats!" cried another. "Surely we must then attempt to outrun the other ship," I said. "We have oarsmen, and a sail. The other ship, if it has a mast and sail, it has not yet raised them. We can thus gain time. I do not understand why the captain has not yet committed the oarsmen. Too, I do not understand why there is so little fear on board. Surely pirates, corsairs, are dangerous." Port Kar is sometimes referred to as the "Scourge of Thassa." I think this epithet was generated in an earlier time when Port Kar had no Home Stone, when it may have been, indeed, little more than a "a den of pirates, thieves, and cutthroats," as dangerous to its own citizens as to its enemies, in particular, the great maritime Ubarates of Cos and Tyros. I did not know if I would ever see Addison Steele again. And I hated the woman who had been with him though I had never even seen her, the Lady Dorna. The name had been familiar. I had heard it on the voyage to Port Kar. It had been the name of the ship of the fearsome Bosk of Port Kar, said to be a slaver, trader, and pirate. It was, perhaps, a common female name in civilized Gor. Rencers had raised the shelter price for river pirates seeking asylum in the delta, when fleeing from ships of the Vosk League; "From four cities, and three towns," said the man, "from the darkness of forests and the caves of mountains, from dismal alleys and crowded insulae, from the camps of bandits and the lairs of pirates." I wondered if this were a heritage from the days when there was no Home Stone in Port Kar, when she was known broadly as the "Scourge of Thassa," a den of thieves, pirates, and cutthroats, rather than as she now chose to speak of herself, as the "Jewel of Gleaming Thassa." It was also speculated he might be "fishing," namely, doing the business of piracy, scouring the seas for shipping to seize and loot. It was ten days since the repelled attack on the holding of Bosk of Port Kar, who was apparently still at sea, supposedly in the vicinity of the Farther Islands, intent on investigating depredation and carnage wrought in his name. But, for all I knew, he was himself a pirate and marauder. "Captain Bosk is still at sea," I said. "In fury," he said, "investigating piracy wrought in his name." The raid which had wrought this destruction was untypical of the work of common corsairs, pirates, and thieves. "Yes," said he, "where lies a citadel of ruthless cunning, of envy, violence, wrath, murder, and greed, of arrant ambition, a lawless, bestial port, feared from Torvaldsland to Schendi, a port the scourge of turbulent Thassa, a den of thieves and cutthroats, a lair of pirates, near whose walls fish dare not swim, over which birds refuse to fly." More than once we had lowered our masts and sails, and our low ships, painted green, the pirate color, difficult to detect in the waves of Thassa, had lain almost flat in the water. "How is it we find you in such sore straits?" I inquired. "Our poor vessel, the Doris," said the first, "was beset by pirates, two days ago, by the dreaded corsair, the merciless Bosk of Port Kar, rogue of Thassa!" "One would expect so practiced a pirate as Bosk of Port Kar to be less careless, more meticulous, more thorough," I said. "I fear we only looked upon the distraught women with compassion," said Clitus. "Would that not have been suspicious in itself," I asked, "three women, to be pitied, so distracting, and not one man?" "Why would a pirate not have seized them for slaves?" asked Thurnock. "Precisely," I said. "We have seen no sign of the pirate fleet in our wake since early morning," said Clitus. "Why should so notorious a pirate content himself with villages?" asked Nicomachos. "The loot of isolated, palisaded hamlets is not likely to fill holds with treasure." "The pirate fleet appears from nowhere," said Nicomachos, "strikes, and vanishes." The caste of Peasants, usually ensconced in remote, isolated settlements, tends to be wary and suspicious of other castes, commonly suspecting them of an impressive variety of ill doings, ranging from subtle deceit to outright chicanery, particularly in the spheres of fraudulent bookkeeping and dishonest weights. I always found this ironic as the average peasant, like the average Tuchuk, is commonly a bargainer whose sense of business shrewdness is not far removed from that of a practiced, marauding pirate. On the other hand, interestingly, a peasant is likely to trust another peasant, even from a remote village. That has something to do with the codes. Also, of course, the gold need not have been mined or panned. It might have been seized by peasants from shipwrecked vessels, or even cached inland by pirates, possibly generations ago. "Have you heard of the notorious Bosk of Port Kar?" I asked. "Who has not heard of that dreadful pirate, so elusive and ruthless a corsair?" "Perhaps you have heard," I said, keeping my eyes to the side, "of the notorious pirate, Bosk of Port Kar." "If," I said, "you, could encounter and destroy the fleet of the notorious pirate, Bosk of Port Kar." "Yes!" he said, striking his right fist savagely into the palm of his left hand. "I suspect your presence at the fair is pertinent to that end," I said. "Precisely," he said. "I am sure that the pirate, Bosk of Port Kar, or his spies, will be at the fair, to assess the wealth of villages, to note the cargos of what ships are bound where, and so on. It is here that I hope to obtain information which will allow me to meet his fleet and wipe it from the sea. But what is your purpose here, noble Statercounter?" "Leaving the fair," I said, "the corsairs will seek prey at sea. But in the harbor at Mytilene there are more than two hundred ships, and most will not raise their sails and depart until the closing of the fair. And, from such a rich, departing swarm, pirates could intercept few more than one or two ships." Indeed, that was why a common departure was to take place. "But," said Sakim, "what if three ships, round ships of Brundisium, splendid ships with rich cargos, leave the harbor unexpectedly early, to elude pirates. Indeed, they might travel together for protection." "Three round ships, together or not, would be easy prey for seven knife ships," I said. "I heard about the three ships independently, earlier," said Sakim. "Drunken mariners talk, and are proud of their cleverness, how by an early departure they can outwit pirates." "I take it," said Melete, "the Anango round ship, fearing pirates, has chosen an out-of-the-way course home." "The Peasantry rises," I said. "The Islands are weary of the depredations of pirates, the oppressions, economic and military, legal and illegal, of violent, savage Cos. We think of liberty. It is in the air, like the wind of Se'Kara or the scent of the sea. The wooden shoe, tied to the lance point, is even now being carried from village to village." "Strange that you, Bosk of Port Kar, should speak of honor," I said. "Is Bosk of Port Kar not a rogue, a pirate and villain, a fellow perfidious and merciless, a cad and scoundrel, one both treacherous and dishonorable?" "Our spies in Sybaris," said Sakim, "report widescale defection amongst the corsairs. Many have fled Thera. Panic is rampant. It seems village raids have been discontinued. Rumors abound. Tales of a merciless Peasant army, one spread amongst the islands, circulate in the taverns. Recruitment of pirates, save for crews, lags, or is nonexistent. Brigands do not seek to pit themselves against insurmountable odds. Brigands look for loot, not death." "Too," I said, "those on the living islands could always simply neglect reporting sightings, and such." "Not so easy," said Sakim. "Many islands were posted with a partisan of the pirates." The Dorna, of course, was already painted green, a color often favored by pirates, as it is difficult to detect at a distance. "I think," said Thrasymedes, "you may be of the corsairs yourselves, or of their ilk. You would trick us from our walls to have an open, vulnerable town at your disposal. If you are truly of the Merchants, where is your ship?" "Our ships are elsewhere," I said. "I did not wish to risk having them trapped in the harbor." "Rather," said a council member. "that it not be noted that they are painted green, the color of piracy." "They are painted green," I said. "Pirates!" exclaimed a council member. "No," I said. "We are not pirates, but we may meet them at sea, and would prefer to do so with similar advantages." "We would not wish to miss the triumph of Nicomachos, naval hero, victor over the fleet of the notorious pirate, Bosk of Port Kar," I said. "I shall render the gist of matters," I said. "Due to the valor and skill of the noble Nicomachos, Admiral of the Fleet of the Farther Islands, all hail to the sublime Lurius of Jad, Ubar of Cos, the fleet of the notorious pirate, Bosk of Port Kar, predator to shipping, burner of villages, ravager of towns and cities, has but recently been surprised, captured, burned, and sunk fifty pasangs off the coast of Chios." "What of the leader of the pirates," asked my interlocutor, "the nefarious Bosk of Port Kar? Is there nothing of him there?" "You are gracious to grant this audience," I said. "How could it be refused to one who has captured the famous pirate and outlaw, Bosk of Port Kar?" he said. "Does he truly think that great Lurius of Jad, the glorious Ubar of Cos, would promote the fortunes of thieves and pirates for a mere percentage of their booty? Far more is afoot, cities and fleets, fields of diamonds, seas of gems, rivers of silver and mountains of gold." Port Kar was far from Ar and the major cities of Gor; it was also a polity which retained something of its former reputation as a dangerous den of pirates and thieves; might not a stranger then, say, a bounty hunter, find himself at risk in such a place; too, surely it would seem an unlikely place in which to seek the proud, regal Talena of Ar; too, who would suspect that a common, even if unusually beautiful, tavern girl, one so publicly displayed to the frank, lustful scrutiny accorded to such properties, might be identical with so desiderated a prize? "I sense, even from Jad," he said, "that you are a figure of consequence, an officer, or captain, perhaps even from Port Kar, that den of pirates and cutthroats."
Yes, I knew the reputation of Treve. It was a city rich in plunder, probably as lofty, inaccessible and impregnable as a tarn's nest. Indeed, Treve was known as the Tarn of the Voltai. It was an arrogant, never-conquered citadel, a stronghold of men whose way of life was banditry, whose women lived on the spoils of a hundred cities. Yes, I knew the reputation of Treve. It was a city rich in plunder, probably as lofty, inaccessible and impregnable as a tarn's nest. Indeed, Treve was known as the Tarn of the Voltai. It was an arrogant, never-conquered citadel, a stronghold of men whose way of life was banditry, whose women lived on the spoils of a hundred cities. Vika was a bandit princess, accustomed to be clad in silk and jewels from a thousand looted caravans, to sleep on the richest furs and sup on the most delicate viands, all purloined from galleys, beached and burnt, from the ravished storerooms of outlying, smoking cylinders, from the tables and treasure chests of homes whose men were slain, whose daughters wore the chains of slave girls, only now she herself, Vika, this bandit princess, proud Vika, a woman of lofty, opulent Treve, had fallen spoils herself in the harsh games of Gor, and felt on her own throat the same encircling band of steel with which the men of her city had so often graced the throats of their fair, weeping captives. Vika was now property. I turned to face Vika once more, and I no longer saw the girl to whom I had been speaking but a woman of High Caste, from the bandit kingdom of Treve, insolent and imperious, though collared. I still had not determined to my satisfaction that she might be fully trusted, much to her distress, and I would take no chances with her for I knew who she was, the bandit princess of the lofty plundering Treve of the Voltai Range. No, I would take no chances with this girl, whom I knew to be as treacherous and vicious as the nocturnal, sinuous, predatory sleen. The northern forests, the haunts of bandits and unusual beasts, far to the north and east of Ko-ro-ba, my city, are magnificent, deep forests, covering hundreds of thousands of square pasangs. Treve is a bandit city, high among the crags of the larl-prowled Voltai. "It is the bandit, Hassan!" cried a guard. "Hassan, the bandit," I said. "Tal," said Hassan, to the merchant who stood at his stirrup. "We have water," said the merchant, greeting the bandit. "Aretai are sleen," said Hassan. I wondered that he should feel so deeply about such matters, he, a bandit. I was appreciative of this hospitality in the male seraglio of the kasbah of Tarna, bandit chieftain of the Tahari. The location of the kasbah of Tarna, bandit chieftain of the Tahari, her lair, was secret. "Perhaps it was another bandit," suggested Hassan. "Many of us, veiled, resemble one another." "You are a bandit," pointed out the figure on the dais. "Doubtless each of us has our own business," said Hassan. "Being a bandit is my business. Surely you would not hold one's business against him." It did not seem to be a hunting camp, though hunting was done from it. Too, I did not think it was a camp of bandits, for the men in the camp did not seem of the bandit sort; not only did the cut and differing insignia on their tunics suggest a uniform of sorts, but the clear-cut subordination, the obvious organization and discipline which characterized them and their relationships did not suggest outlawry; "You are common bandits," she said. These caravans come from all over known Gor. Most arrive safely. Some are preyed upon by bandits and slavers. "How do you work your living?" I asked. "Are you a bandit?" "No," said he. "I am a trader. I trade north of Ax Glacier for the furs of sleen, the pelts of leem and larts." "A lonely work," I said. "I have no Home Stone," he shrugged. I pitied him. "How is it," I asked, "that you fell slave?" "The hide bandits," he said. "What is your name?" he asked. "Tarl," said I. "Let that suffice." "Accepted," he said, smiling. He would not pry further into my affairs. Doubtless he assumed I was bandit, fugitive or assassin. "May I present my colleague," said my lovely captor, "Sorgus." "The hide bandit?" I asked. "Yes," she said. "Are you a bandit?" she asked. "No, Lady," said I. "I was attacked by bandits," I said. "They took my clothes." "It is not warfare," said a man. "It is brigandage, it is ambush and banditry!" "Those of the Warriors, or sometimes mercenaries, or outlaws, or raiders, or bandits, whoever mounts, masters and rides tarns." Surely in a camp such as this, so open, so populous, there might be thieves, brigands, bandits, murderers, who knew what practitioners of diverse arts predatory and unscrupulous. "Sometimes we lose them to raiders, or bandits." "Who are these men?" I asked. They seemed a nondescript, but dangerous lot. There were some fifty men. "Bandits, mercenaries, assassins, outcasts, men without captains, strangers, all strangers," he said. Those brought to Tarncamp were, I had gathered from Pertinax, mercenaries, bandits, brigands, thieves, murderers, wanderers, low men, cast-off men, men lost from Home Stones, and such. Similarly it seemed that formidable island ubarates such as Tyros and Cos would have little to fear from, say, a squadron of bandit tarnsmen. I, once a spear of Cos, even a first spear, leader of nine men, with hundreds of others, after the trouble in Ar, scattered, separated from our commands and units, withdrew to Torcadino, and thence, bribing and spending, and then by recourse to brigandage and banditry, made our way by long marches to the sea, to the small coastal outposts and trading stations maintained by Tabor and Teletus, south of Brundisium, from which, with our last bit of silver, even to the surrender of accouterments and weapons, dispirited, hungry, and ruined, we obtained passage, mostly on fishing craft, little more than refugees, some to Tyros, most to Cos. But amongst them as well were landless men, younger sons, men without Home Stones, bandits, pirates, adventurers, soldiers of fortune, thieves, fugitives, wanted men, cutthroats, fugitives from Ar, such as Seremides, and others. Had these lines of skilled, hardened men, selected with care by the Pani, veterans, mercenaries, killers, bandits, brigands, and pirates, from enlisted crews, rural gangs, disbanded cohorts, and scattered free companies, not checked the enemy, few if any of our forces would have escaped death. Were they not vulnerable, outside the walls? Might there not be bandits? "Not the Voltai!" said Jane, kneeling with Eve, wearing only their collars, their knees in the dirt. "There are beasts, bandits!" "We might then run," said Eve. "To be taken by bandits, or eaten alive by beasts," said Jane. I know of only one city in the Voltai, like a remote tarn's aerie, and that is the bandit city of Treve. The rumors of this I heard in the city universally understood the event as the cornering of a large number of bandits by vengeful Peasants. "Trachinos and Akesinos were placed in fee," I said. "Bandits," he said, "whose intention was despoliation." Some were even purchased at the gates, off their rope coffles, as bandits, or refugees, had brought them in. They were not reluctant, it seems, to recruit vagabonds, likely bandits, rogue mercenaries, cutthroats, boasters, liars, gamblers, and thieves. I had gathered that many might resent the Merchants, envying their wealth. It was said they raised nothing, and made nothing, but were brigands without lairs, bandits who looted without risk, men who drew blood with knives of gold. So, I thought, she is branded. I knew little of Treve, other than the fact that it was reputedly a bandit city somewhere in the vastness of the mighty Voltai mountains, far to the south. But bandits who know their trade would seldom attack an unscouted camp. "It is said," said Lord Nishida, "that a thousand posts surmounted by a thousand heads line the march of Yamada to the lands of Temmu." "Those of bandits and recreants," said Tyrtaios. In the chaos of war, beasts might come from afar to hunt amongst the ruins. Often bands of brigands, consortiums of irregulars, even bandits, roamed disputed, ill-defended landscapes. Whereas I had been willing, under the force of circumstances, recognizing treachery in high places, and the lack of practical alternatives, to conduct the cavalry as a rogue arm, aflight on behalf of Lord Temmu, I was unwilling to transform it into what would be in effect a brigade of bandits under an independent mercenary captain. It had been formed and trained as, and had been intended as, a component in a unified force, engaged in a particular mission. "I once decapitated a bandit, who thought me unarmed," he said. In such times roads are lonely and bandits grow bold. Some may even be bandits, not Ashigaru, and one cannot always be sure of Ashigaru either, particularly out of the sight of officers. I had scarcely risen to my feet, when I heard a new and a very angry, voice. "Besotted dolts!" it cried. "Drunken tarsks! Two Ahn you are late at the checkpoint! Who will vouch for you? Who will bring you to the camp and conduct you safely to the rice wagons? Your spoil is at the door, the cart is empty! Dally at an inn, will you! Do you not know there are bandits about?" "You are Arashi, the bandit, are you not?" said the fellow, the warrior, tightly bound, sitting cross-legged on the floor, next to Tajima. "Nor will I," snarled Yasushi. "I wear the ropes of a bandit. I am dishonored. The shogun would have me bound, and caged with starving urts. All I ask from you is a blade with which I might end my disgrace." Obviously those outside, or some of them, had bows at their disposal. This lovely weapon was not possessed by the bandits, who, simple, ignorant men, made do, for the most part with knives and clubs. Arashi, I thought, was shrewd. I thought he knew more of war than would be expected of a peasant, and bandit. I also supposed that he would be aware of another possibility. To be sure, it was one he would be likely to keep to himself. It would not hearten his men. "I smell smoke!" cried a man. I could hear a fierce crackling from above. "The roof is on fire!" screamed a bandit. I could not see the fire for the sleeping loft, reachable at one end of the eating hall by a ladder, but I could hear it, and, shortly thereafter, began to feel the heat, and the burning of the air. Some of the bandits were in the kitchen, by the rear entrance, which they had blocked. Most, seven, not counting their leader, Arashi, were in the eating hall. They stood about, confused, frightened. At the side of the eating hall, backed against the wall, now unthreatened, perhaps forgotten in the distress and tumult, were Tajima and the constable, Yasushi. Both were unarmed. The foragers, two with glaives, the other with a drawn knife, were still between them and the bandits. Tajima was looking about, wildly. Well did the young warrior recognize the imminent danger, which was not at all limited to the blades and clubs of bandits. Yasushi had his eyes fixed on Arashi. He opened and closed his fists, as though he would that a weapon might somehow appear in them. Arashi swept his hand toward Tajima, Yasushi, and the foragers. "Kill them!" he cried. The bandits milled, wavering. Who would be the first to fling himself upon the brandished glaives of determined Ashigaru? Yet, I was sure the bandits, despite the danger, and despite their fear, and their dread of the unknown quantity of the forces outside, would respond to Arashi's command. Indeed, given their misery and confusion I thought they might have been willing to respond to any order addressed to them with sufficient authority, perhaps by anyone. The two glaives and the knife I was sure, could not withstand a concerted attack of several desperate men. "Kill them!" cried Arashi, again. "Come back!" cried Haruki. But by the time he called out, from back where we had been standing, ill at ease, apprehensive, observant unobtrusive, even discounted, against the wall, I was across the room. The nearest bandit, poised to attack, facing the foragers, had no time to react. He had barely lifted his head, startled, trying to register the sound, the possible movement behind him, when the weight of my shoulders struck against the back of his knees, and he pitched backward, suddenly, awkwardly, forcibly, miserably, half paralyzed. I was on my feet. I jammed my heel down on his throat. His blade a field sword, that purloined from Tajima was loose in his hand. I stomped on his wrist and the hilt was free, and then, with a sweeping kick, I slid the loose blade across the floor, between the Ashigaru, to Yasushi, who seized it up with a cry of elation. I crouched down, my hands tied behind me. I was not attacked. Two of the bandits, like sheaves of wheat, reeled back, cut from the path of the exultant Yasushi. The others drew back. One threw his blade to the floor. I could hear the fire roar through the roof, above the sleeping loft. I heard a plank fall. Near the ladder I could see sparks. The sleeping loft, once the fire reached the straw matting, would erupt with flame. Arashi turned, wildly, seeing Yasushi, armed. He brought up his own field sword and blocked the fierce blow which might have taken his head. His own attempt to strike was turned aside, smartly, twice, by Yasushi, almost indifferently. "Do not fear," said Yasushi. "I want you alive." "Die!" cried Arashi, rushing upon him, flailing. "I fear," said Yasushi, "you cannot touch me." "Ai!" cried Arashi, in pain. "But I can touch you," said Yasushi. Arashi winced, drawing back, his shirt bright with blood. The four bandits in the eating hall, left of the seven, fled from the hall into the kitchen. "Flee," they cried to their fellows blockading the door. "Arrows!" cried one, protestingly. "A warrior, a warrior inside, is armed," cried one of the fugitives from the eating hall. "It is a larl, a larl with fangs of steel," wept a man. "Unbar the door. Escape!" cried another. "It is loose!" Tajima, securing a companion sword from one of the fallen bandits, severed the bonds on my wrists. They parted easily, almost falling away from the blade. Such a blade, lifted, can divide silk. I heard the heavy wooden bars removed from their mounts at the back door to the inn. Crates, too, which had been piled against the door, were cast aside. I heard an arrow splinter into the door. I did not know what lay without, in the back, but I did not envy the miserable, fear-stricken bandits who, crying out, burst outward, buffeting one another, into the sunlight. The three foragers, now each with a glaive, stood back. Arashi and Yasushi had the main room, the eating hall, muchly to themselves. The inn grew hot. Smoke was about, like cruel, dark, dry air. I retrieved the tanto which had been taken from me, from one of the two bandits whom Yasushi had scarcely noticed, acknowledging them merely with two dismissive gestures of steel. I then relieved Haruki of his bonds. "Behold Yasushi!" exclaimed Tajima. "See the swordwork. The man is a master!" Yasushi, now, was doing no more than playing with the desperate half-frenzied Arashi. "We must depart the inn," I said. "When the roof falls it may take the loft with it, and the ceiling will cave in." Haruki was coughing. He was far from the pleasantries, the colors and perfumes, of his garden. "That man is a master!" said Tajima awed. "Let us leave," I said. "But who is without?" said Tajima. "It does not much matter," I said. A crash came from above. "The roof falls!" I said. Hopefully the loft floor would hold, if only long enough for us to make our escape. There was a great, crackling roar of flames above, and a new wave of heat, and I could see the brightness above through the cracks in the ceiling, cracks I had not even noticed until now, until they were bright with light. "Kill me!" pleaded Arashi. "I want you alive," said Yasushi. I did not know the fate of the bandits who had exited the inn through the rear entrance, nor, indeed, those whom the fellow I had taken for the innkeeper had failed to discern, when he had thought to inquire into the preparations for departure. Yasushi then struck the blade from the hand of Arashi, who then stood before him, weary, bleeding, unarmed. "You are under arrest," said Yasushi. Arashi glared angrily at the floor. "Bind him," said Yasushi, to the three Ashigaru, the foragers, "two leashes, and the other will herd him with a glaive." "Yes, noble one," said the leader of the foragers. "I suggest it is time to leave the inn," I said. Yasushi handed his field sword to Tajima and regained his own weapon. "It is ill-balanced," said Arashi. "Not for the hand for which it was formed," said Yasushi. Both warriors then, Yasushi and young Tajima were soon armed with their own weaponry. I threw down the bars with which Arashi had secured the door. I feared the ceiling, the floor of the loft, would soon crash down, with a blanket of showering, burning planks. Smoke permeated the room. The wall of the eating hall, to the left as one would enter, was aflame. The main entrance to the inn had then been flung open. Arashi, his upper body swathed with rope, two rope leashes on his neck, each in the keeping of an Ashigaru, stood framed in the doorway. He was thrust forward, into the courtyard. Then behind him, his shirt torn, a sword in each hand, stood Yasushi. "I am Yasushi," he announced, "a march constable of Lord Yamada. This man is Arashi, the bandit. He is my prisoner." "This party then," I said, "was not searching for bandits." "Arashi," said Tajima, "is a bandit, a brigand, a villain, and such, but he is also a leader, a firebrand, a hero amongst many in the villages." In a time of peril even its hazards might seem preferable to those of the outer grounds or the open country, which might be roamed by raiding peasants, by bandits, by renegades, by hungry, desperate soldiers, like animals, freed of the rod of discipline. "How can you, a bandit, object to banditry," asked Tajima, "whether that of a dozen greedy rovers or that of an army?" On Gor, on this world, you are known to the bandit and pirate, Tarl Cabot, and doubtless others, and might, in our interest, well exploit and utilize the bonds of friendship and trust. The skies of Gor, particularly in certain areas, can be dangerous, sometimes due to bandit tarnsmen, but more frequently due to municipal patrols intent on protecting a city's territorial claims, which claims are often exaggerated, pretentious and unclear. "Further," said the Lady Bina, "we informed the agents of the great merchant, Mintar, that we anticipated the appearance of caravan bandits." "We are not caravan bandits!" cried a man, clearly alarmed, looking about. "Upon my signal," cried the first voice, "loose your quarrels." "No, no! Wait, wait!" cried a man. "Hold your fire! We are not bandits! We are not bandits!" "We are not bandits, we are not robbers!" cried another voice, from the darkness. As scavengers flee from the killing beast come to reclaim his prize, as urts speed from the path of the stalking larl, as bandits hasten to elude nearing, searching, avenging guardsmen, so the thieves, brigands, rowdies, miscreants, cheats, liars, cowards, and criminals of Port Kar, men without a Home Stone, prepared to burn and abandon their city. "From four cities, and three towns," said the man, "from the darkness of forests and the caves of mountains, from dismal alleys and crowded insulae, from the camps of bandits and the lairs of pirates." "Have you not considered the possibility that your most dangerous enemy may not be thieves and brigands, bandits and killers, but Cos itself, the state?" "It was burned and looted," said Xanthos, "presumably by the minions of Bosk of Port Kar. Such, in any event, was to be gathered from the signs left behind by the bandits." "It is unusual, as I understand it," said Clitus, "for attacks to take place on Thera." "Possibly," I said, "the bandits, at that time, lacked ships." "A child, herding verr," said Xanthos, "noted the approach of the bandits, in their long lines, and alerted the village. We took to our fishing boats and fled to the Isle of Seleukos, the living island of which you seem to know, with little more than the clothing on our backs." "I would suppose not," I said. "There must be many such. Surely there must remain hopeful, persistent bounty hunters, brigands and bandits unwilling to forget gold, reluctant to admit defeat, men unreconciled to the triumph of Cos, men willing to row swift ships, to swarm upon caravans, to watch the skies for wide-winged tarns." "Trade routes already exist," I said, "if you have the courage to use them. And does any informed person truly believe Cos will commit dozens of regiments of men to the wilderness, to guard thousands of pasangs of roads through treacherous and inhospitable territories infested with rogues, brigands, and bandits? And would you at the same time lay the cities of Cos open to the depredations of Port Kar and the mercies of the rovers of Torvaldsland?" Treve was a bandit city, hidden high in the Voltai range. I was surprised that Xenon, a simple oarsman from Jad, could speak with such assurance of the location of mercenary troops. Too, he had seemed more familiar with the local terrain and the obstacles which the Cosian expedition might face than I would have expected. "Brigands, bandits," said Seremides. "They are rare, too, in the wilderness," said Xenon. "I wager, then," I said, "that every brigand and bandit between the coast and Ar may know of the caravan."
"In the view of hundreds of those of Victoria these men, so few of them, burned and looted, laughing and with impunity, as it pleased them. And in the view of hundreds of those of Victoria, angry, but inactive and cowering, not daring to protest, were lofty free women of this town publicly stripped and bound, thence to be carried into shameful slavery, to wear their collars at the feet of buccaneers." We had not, of course, struck out for Tetrapoli, nor any of the other river towns. Instead of proceeding northwest toward Tetrapoli, or toward any other of the western towns, we had, under sail and oars, proceeded directly northward along the chain. By dusk we had come to the northern break in the chain, that produced by the second portion of the Voskjard's fleet. Utilizing this opening, the first produced by the buccaneers' incursions, we turned east by southeast. We had little doubt that we would be pursued first, mistakenly, northwestward toward Tetrapoli. While vessels followed our putative course, and the balance of the pirate fleet, regrouping and repairing injuries, waited upon their return, we sped, in alternating shifts, day and night, toward the holding of Policrates. My original plan, I was confident, had it not been for its betrayal, would have gained us admittance into the holding. But a moment later the charging citizens, like thundering, horned kailiauk, like uncontrolled, maddened, stampeding bosk, pikes and spears leveled, chains flailing, swords flashing, boat hooks, and axes and shovels upraised, struck the dumbfounded, disarrayed throngs of astonished buccaneers. More battle horns sounded. Not far off I could hear the clash of weaponry betokening yet another fierce ingress of boarders upon the deck of some vessel of hapless buccaneers. What had once been our Home Stone served then as nothing more than a pledge symbol among the buccaneers of the river.
Ha-Keel might have been a cutthroat and a thief but, too, he was of Ar - and a tarnsman. He was a cutthroat but there were drunken tears in his eyes as he hopped about, pantomiming the work of one of the swift galleys. I was in the delta of the Vosk, and making my way to the city of Port Kar, which alone of Gorean cities commonly welcomes strangers, though few but exiles, murderers, outlaws, thieves and cutthroats would care to find their way to her canaled darknesses. It was she who had served me the night before, before Surbus, and his cutthroats and pirates, had entered the tavern. My men were mostly pirates and cutthroats. Many of these men were cutthroats, killers, pirates. Port Kar is sometimes spoken of by her citizens as the Jewel of Thassa. Other men speak of her differently, rather as a den of thieves and cutthroats, a lair of pirates. These river pirates were not, it must be understood, a few scattered crews of cutthroats. Four or five of Policrates' cutthroats stood about, with their arms folded. "Good," I said. "And what does this mean?" I drew an imaginary line across my throat with my right index finger. I had seen Corn Stalks make this sign in his talk with Grunt. Grunt's eyes clouded. "It is the sign for the Kaiila," he said, "the Cutthroat Tribe." I had then drawn my finger across my throat. That stood for the Kaiila, the Cutthroat tribes. The red horizontal bar, or bars, as the case is, is commonly associated with the Kaiila, the Cutthroat tribe. The binding was traditional; the marks were an explicit convention, signifying the Kaiila, the Cutthroat tribe. The Kaiila, incidentally, in the Barrens, are generally known as the "Cutthroat tribe." The bands, then, generally by outsiders, and usually even among the Kaiila themselves, are supposed to have this sort of significance. I have met Kaiila, however, who have denied this entire line of interpretation. They call my attention to the fact that the Kaiila themselves seldom, among themselves, think of themselves as the "Cutthroat tribe." To be sure, many of its contingents were composed of mercenaries sworn to the temporary service of diverse fee captains, and not Cosian regulars. It is difficult to manage such men. They do not fight for Home Stones. They are often little more than armed rabbles. Many are little better than thieves and cutthroats. "Woe is us," said the girl before me. "These brutes are criminals, murderers, cutthroats, brigands, dangerous men, held in penal servitude. We shall be fortunate if we are not killed!" "From Port Kar," I said, adding, "Jewel of Gleaming Thassa." "Worse than Ar's Station," laughed a fellow. "That is a den of cutthroats and pirates!" To be sure the general reputation of Port Kar was that of a den of thieves, a lair of cutthroats and pirates. "No," I said. "I am of Port Kar." "It is a lair of pirates," said a fellow, "a den of cutthroats." The men clasped hands, and embraced, and then Bosk of Port Kar, Port Kar a port on the Tamber Gulf, rumored to be a den of cutthroats and pirates, and Marcus, of Ar's Station, once an outpost of Ar on the distant Vosk, took their leave. "How is it that a forester," I said, "claims as his the Home Stone of Port Kar?" "I once lived there," he said, "before I took caste. At that time, long ago, there were few, if any, castes in Port Kar. She had no Home Stone. She was a den of thieves, as it was said, a lair of cutthroats, and such, a stinking maze of canals at the marshes, squalid and foul, and malignant." Many of the vessels of Port Kar, that den of thieves and cutthroats, that scourge of Thassa, were green, almost invisible, under oars, low in the water, the mast down. Too, one would not seek Port Kar, as it is a den of thieves and cutthroats, and Tharna was out of the question. But amongst them as well were landless men, younger sons, men without Home Stones, bandits, pirates, adventurers, soldiers of fortune, thieves, fugitives, wanted men, cutthroats, fugitives from Ar, such as Seremides, and others. They were not reluctant, it seems, to recruit vagabonds, likely bandits, rogue mercenaries, cutthroats, boasters, liars, gamblers, and thieves. Ships were being hired, and men recruited, not merely shipsmen, pilots, helmsmen, oarsmen, and such, but men-at-arms, as well, hundreds, mercenaries, many lacking Home Stones, many perhaps indistinguishable from ruffians, vagabonds, brigands, thieves, and cutthroats. Among them, too, were thieves, brigands, and cutthroats, some of whose names and descriptions adorned the public boards in more than one city. "He is a blood-thirsty rogue, and cutthroat," I said. "He is an ungrateful, worthless cutthroat," said Pertinax. "We will be carried there, and, stripped, shackled, and lashed, sold in her markets!" wailed another. "To pirates and cutthroats!" cried another. Port Kar is sometimes referred to as the "Scourge of Thassa." I think this epithet was generated in an earlier time when Port Kar had no Home Stone, when it may have been, indeed, little more than a "a den of pirates, thieves, and cutthroats," as dangerous to its own citizens as to its enemies, in particular, the great maritime Ubarates of Cos and Tyros. I gathered that he had, some days ago, one night, visited various taverns and taken several men into fee, most likely cutthroats and brigands, men who saw no point in inquiring into the nature of an employment, if it paid well. I wondered if this were a heritage from the days when there was no Home Stone in Port Kar, when she was known broadly as the "Scourge of Thassa," a den of thieves, pirates, and cutthroats, rather than as she now chose to speak of herself, as the "Jewel of Gleaming Thassa." "Yes," said he, "where lies a citadel of ruthless cunning, of envy, violence, wrath, murder, and greed, of arrant ambition, a lawless, bestial port, feared from Torvaldsland to Schendi, a port the scourge of turbulent Thassa, a den of thieves and cutthroats, a lair of pirates, near whose walls fish dare not swim, over which birds refuse to fly." "The opening of the tunnel in the corsair camp will be guarded," said Thurnock. "It should be," I said, "but it might not be. We are dealing here with raiders, with looters, cutthroats, and killers, not trained, disciplined troops." "I sense, even from Jad," he said, "that you are a figure of consequence, an officer, or captain, perhaps even from Port Kar, that den of pirates and cutthroats." "I sense, even from Jad," he said, "that you are a figure of consequence, an officer, or captain, perhaps even from Port Kar, that den of pirates and cutthroats." |       
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
