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 ReedsHere are relevant references from the Books where reeds 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 Reeds Boat Flute Island Marsh Mat Pen Raft Shield Slave Mat Snorkel Spear Whistle Rush Craft Mat Sedge
About the island there was much litter, the garbage from the feast, the remains of destroyed rence huts, broken boxes, torn rence sacks, shattered marsh spears, gourds, scattered marsh vine, spilled rence reeds, bodies. I stood up on the raft of rence reed, and looked after the barges. At my feet, half covered with the rence reeds with which we had concealed ourselves, lay Telima. I stood on the surface of the rence island. I looked about myself. I had taken some of the reeds which had been heaped on the raft and, bundling them, had used them, paddling, to move the raft back to the island. Only when I had unbound her had I noticed, on her left thigh, the tiny mark, which had been burned into her flesh long ago, the small letter in cursive script which was the initial letter of Kajira, which is Gorean for a female slave. Always before, in the lighted hut, she had kept that side from me; in the day it had been covered by her tunic; in the night, in the darkness and tumult, I had not noticed it; on the raft it had been concealed in the reeds of the rence plant, with which I had covered her. While she worked I examined my weapons. She had concealed them in the rence, far from her hut, weaving the reeds again over them. The arrows lay before me, loose in the leather wrapper opened before me on the reeds of the rence craft. When the rence craft was lost, some hundred yards from the barges, among the reeds and sedge, I had her secure the craft. I put the bow back on the reeds of the rence craft, and removed the arrows from my belt. I looked across to the delta wall, bordering the marshes. I could see the girl, Elinor, walking the wall, as she did often at this hour, looking out over the reeds and the glistening water. She was lovely. He had, finally, succeeded in making his way into the marshes, in the Vosk's vast delta, where he had been taken in by rencers, who live on islands, woven of rence reeds, in the delta. Another of the new girls was thrown over one of the benches; she lay on her back; her head was down, her dark hair, long, wild, was in the dirt and reeds, strewn on the floor of the hall; For an instant I was conscious only of the dirt floor, the reeds strewn upon it, the mad forest of running feet. The man left tracks by the side of the pond, and then waded into the chill water. He broke off a reed and then waded deeper into the water. He broke off a tube of reed. The girl looked at him, frightened. In the distance I could see the four guardsmen, moving swiftly, trying to catch up with the girl who had broken away from them in the rash vanity of her hunt, desiring to be first upon the prize. She had apparently broken the hunting line without informing them. Perhaps, too, her tharlarion was swifter than theirs. It bore less weight. I saw the man take the tube of reed he had broken off and thrust it in her mouth; then the knife he carried, hers, lay across her throat; I saw her eyes, wild, in the moonlight, and then he, another bit of reed in his mouth, pulled her quietly below the surface. Then the marsh reeds parted and I saw, before us, sparkling in the sun, broad and shining, the waters of Lake Ngao. I emerged among roots and reeds. "Do you know the delta of the Vosk?" he asked. "I once traversed it," I said. "Tell me about it," he said. "It is treacherous, and trackless," I said. "It covers thousands of square pasangs. It is infested with insects, snakes and tharlarion. Marsh sharks even swim among its reeds. I supposed, however, that dozens of men, perhaps some carrying torches or flaming brands, or lanterns, would be wading about, slipping in the mud, parting reeds, add so on, swords drawn, at the bank of the Vosk, looking for me. The creature then submerged, and turning, struck against one of the barges, lifting it up a yard, from the water, then was under it, the barge sliding off its back, half turned, and was moving away, under water, through the reeds. "Forward!" called the officer. "Hurry! They cannot be far ahead now." "The reeds are broken in two places," said a man. "We shall divide our forces," said the officer. Another contingent of men was behind us. He could hear their shouts, now. The bow of the rence craft, still dry, nosed through reeds. Other craft, too, were about. A gant suddenly fluttered out of the reeds, darting up, then again down, away. Ellen stirred, awakening, on her stomach, lying in the mud, half in the water, amongst the reeds, clinging still to the wreckage of her basket. There were two of them, standing in the water, one on each side of her. She did not look up, but hooked her fingers tightly in the remnants of the wicker. "Let us see her," she heard. Her fingers were then loosened from the wicker. It was then thrust away, back into the water. Her fingers dug into the mud of the shore, the water lapping softly about her. She then felt herself being turned about and put to her back. About dawn she reached the shore and lost consciousness amongst the reeds. The water there, say, some three or four yards from shore, was some eight to ten inches deep. It moved about her and between her thighs. It felt chilly and gritty. Under the water she felt the mud, slippery and cold, beneath her toes and knees. A breeze came over the water. It moved her hair just a little, she felt it on her arm, and it rustled beyond her, through the reeds. She heard the younger lad now splashing through the reeds. In a short time he returned and her hands were bound behind her back. The rope was long enough to serve as well as a leash, and, moments after she had been ordered to her feet, some yard or so of it, rising from her confined wrists, had been looped and knotted about her throat, its free end then, some five feet or so in length, serving as a leash. Ellen knew that sometimes even desiderated slaves, before a submission ceremony, were put on a simple camp rope and led about, that they would better understand their condition and status, that of a domestic animal, but in her case the rope was not symbolic in nature, but effected a simple utility, constituting a device for keeping and controlling a girl. Ellen, bound, was led on her leash, stumbling, wading, through the reeds. "This one," said the Ashigaru, "is as supple as a reed, as delicate as a talender." "Twice," said Tajima "tarnsmen returned, circling about, at a great height, and we must conceal ourselves, once in the reeds and mud near a small stream, once in leaves and brush." Then I noticed that certain reeds to my right were broken and trampled. A moment later the tharlarion was splashing through the small rivulet in which I and others had bathed, I dragged behind him, choking and sputtering, on the net rope through the water, reeds, and mud.
A kind of paper is made from rence. . . . The plant has many uses besides serving as a raw product in the manufacture of rence paper. The root, which is woody and heavy, is used for certain wooden tools and utensils, which can be carved from it; also, when dried, it makes a good fuel; from the stem the rence growers can make reed boats, Sometimes the slaves, stripped, a rope on their neck, in the keeping of a master, are made to pole the light reed boats through the rence. I saw, coming through the rence, a single boat, a reed boat, small and formed of the bound-and-bundled stalks of the rence plant. "I come in the name of Ho-Hak, he of the large ears," said the man in the reed boat, "he, Ubar of the Marshes."
Then the man with the drum of hollow rence root began to drum, and I heard some others join in with reed flutes, and one fellow had bits of metal, strung on a circular wire, and another a notched stick, played by scraping it with a flat spoon of rence root.
The delta of the Vosk, It is also inhabited by the rencers, who live upon rence islands, woven of the rence reed, masters of the long bow, usually obtained in trade with peasants to the east of the delta.
From the back of Nar I could see the marsh, with its reeds and clouds of tiny flying insects below. From a wall of reeds about fifty paces to the right and thirty feet below, stumbling and screaming, came the bundled figure of a human being, running in horror, its hands flung out before it. In that instant I recognized the heavy brocaded robes, now mud-splattered and torn, of the daughter of the Ubar. Scarcely had she broken into the clearing, splashing through the shallow greenish - waters near us than the fearsome head of a wild tharlarion poked through the reeds, its round, shining eyes gleaming with excitement, its vast arc of a mouth swung open.
Importantly, there are also surfaces of various textures, a deep-piled rug, satins, silks, coarsely woven kaiila-hair cloths, brocades, rep-cloth, a tiled corner, a sleen leather, mats of reeds, etc.
The writing was quite legible. It was written in black ink, probably with a reed pen.
I stood up on the raft of rence reed, and looked after the barges. At my feet, half covered with the rence reeds with which we had concealed ourselves, lay Telima.
"I was born to the caste," he said. "I have been trained in the work of the caste, from childhood with wooden swords and shields of woven reeds to the award of the scarlet cape."
But I had swept her into my arms and carried her a few yards down the passageway and then into one of the side passages, where, sticking out from a rear area, I had seen the corner, in the mist of other garbage, refuse and trash, of a discarded, ragged, thick, roughly woven reed slave mat.
The man left tracks by the side of the pond, and then waded into the chill water. He broke off a reed and then waded deeper into the water. He broke off a tube of reed. I saw the man take the tube of reed he had broken off and thrust it in her mouth; then the knife he carried, hers, lay across her throat; I saw her eyes, wild, in the moonlight, and then he, another bit of reed in his mouth, pulled her quietly below the surface. From the heaped mud on the raft, unobtrusively, protruded three hollow stems, of broken marsh reed. Kisu, with his hands, dug in the mud. He reached under the mud and seized the blond hair of a slave girl, cords of pierced shells looped about her neck. He pulled her free, by the hair, from the mud. The reed, through which she had breathed, fell from her teeth.
The smaller children played together, the boys playing games with small nets and reed marsh spears, the girls with rence dolls, or some of the older ones sporting with throwing sticks, competing against one another.
One of the men went out, into the corridor. From various points we heard him blowing blasts, on a reed whistle. We expected ten men to return, answering the summons of the reed whistle, but only nine came in.
The Wagon Peoples claimed the southern prairies of Gor, from the gleaming Thassa and the mountains of Ta-Thassa to the southern foothills of the Voltai Range itself, that reared in the crust of Gor like the backbone of a planet. On the north they claimed lands even to the rush-grown banks of the Cartius, a broad, swift flowing tributary feeding into the incomparable Vosk. Never has a slave girl escaped from canaled Port Kar, protected on one side by the interminable, rush-grown delta of the Vosk, on the other by the broad tides of the Tamber Gulf, and beyond it, the vast, blue, gleaming, perilous Thassa. I reached down from the rush craft and took a palm of water into my hand and touched my tongue to it. Thassa could not be far beyond. I took the triangular-bladed tem-wood paddle and moved the small craft, light and narrow, large enough scarcely for one man, ahead. It was formed of pliant, tubular, lengthy Vosk rushes, bound with marsh vine. A brightly plumaged bird sprang from the rushes to my left, screaming and beating its sudden way into the blue sky. In a moment it had darted again downward to be lost in the rushes, the waving spore stalks, the seed pods of various growths of the Gorean tidal marshes. It was difficult to see more than a few feet ahead; sometimes I could see no further than the lifted prow of my small craft, as it nosed its way among the rushes and the frequent rence plants. I flicked a salt leach from the side of my light rush craft with the corner of the tem-wood paddle. On river barges, for hundreds of pasangs, I had made my way down the Vosk, but where the mighty Vosk began to break apart and spread into its hundreds of shallow, constantly shifting channels, becoming lost in the vast tidal marshes of its delta, moving toward gleaming Thassa, the Sea, I had abandoned the barges, purchasing from rence growers on the eastern periphery of the delta supplies and the small rush craft which I now propelled through the rushes and sedge, the wild rence plants. In many places it is too shallow to float even the great flat-bottomed barges and, more importantly, a path for them would have to be cut and chopped, foot by foot, through the thickets of rush and sedge, and the tangles of marsh vine. The most important reason for not finding a guide, of course, even among the eastern rence growers, is that the delta is claimed by Port Kar, which lies within it, some hundred pasangs from its northwestern edge, bordering on the shallow Tamber Gulf, beyond which is gleaming Thassa, the Sea. The calls of marsh gants, a kind of piping whistle, seemed more frequent now, and somewhat closer. I looked behind me, and to the sides. Yet, not surprisingly, because of the rence, the rushes and sedge, I could not see the birds. I moved the small, light craft through the rushes, past the sign. I must make my way to Port Kar. I saw the girl ahead, through a break in the rushes, some fifty yards beyond. Almost at the same time she looked up, startled. She was standing on a small skiff of rence, not larger than my own rush craft, about seven feet long and two feet wide, fastened together, as mine was, with marsh vine; it, like mine, had a slightly curved stern and prow. In her hand was a curved throwing stick, used for hunting birds. It is not a boomerang, which would be largely useless among the sedges and rushes, but it would, of course, float, and might be recovered and used indefinitely. I moved the rush craft toward her, but not swiftly. Instantly there was a great cry from all sides, and, breaking through the rushes and sedge, dozens of rence craft, bound with marsh vine, thrust into view, each poled by one man, with another in the prow, a two- or three-pronged marsh spear uplifted. My weapons were taken. My clothing was removed. I was thrown forward on my face in the rush craft. The girl stepped lightly onto my craft and stood with one foot on either side of my body. She was handed the pole with which she had propelled her own craft, which craft was tied to another of the rence craft of the men who had come from the rushes and sedge. The sun was low now and insects moved in the sedge. The water glistened in the dusk, moving in small bright circles about the stems of rushes. Lost among the rushes and sedge, out in the darkness of the marsh, some hundred yards from the rence islands, two of which were burning, Telima, bound, and I, a garland of rence flowers bloodied in my hair, watched the movement of torches, listened to the shouts of men, the screams of women, the cries of children. It is sometimes difficult for even a small rence craft to make its way through the tangles of rushes and sedge in the delta. Soon, shielded by rushes and sedge, we had the first of the narrow, high-prowed barges abeam. This was their flagship. The warriors in the craft, climbing on the rowing benches, were crowded amidships and aft, even on the tiller deck, looking back at the barge line behind them, trying to make out the shouting, the confusion. Some of the slaves, chained at their benches, were trying to stand and see what might be the matter. On the small foredeck of the barge, beneath the high, curved prow, stood the officer and Henrak, both looking aft. The officer, angrily, was shouting the length of the barge to its oar-master, who now stood on the tiller deck, looking back toward the other barges, his hands on the sternrail. On the high, curved prow, to which was bound, naked, the lithe, dark-haired girl, there stood a lookout, he, too, looking backward, shielding his eyes. Below the prow, in the marsh water, the slaves in the punt stopped cutting at the sedge and marsh vine that blocked their way. I stood in the small craft, shielded by rushes and sedge. My feet were spread; my heels were aligned with the target; my feet and body stood at right angles to the target line; my head was sharply turned to my left; I drew the sheaf arrow to its pile, until the three half-feathers of the Vosk gull lay at my jawbone; I took breath and then held it, sighting over the pile; there must be no movement; then I released the string. The shaft, at the distance, passed completely through his body, flashing beyond him and vanishing among the rushes and sedges in the distance. Telima, silently, poled us back further among the rushes, skillfully turning the small craft and moving again toward the last barge. I awakened stiff in the cold of the marsh dawn, hearing the movement of the wind through the dim sedges, the cries of an occasional marsh gant darting among the rushes. Then she poled us to the vicinity of the barges. They seemed lonely and gray in the morning light. Always keeping us shielded by thickets of rush and sedge, she circled the six barges, fastened together. It was not unusual, incidentally, that the floor of the great hall, rich as it was, was of dirt, strewn with rushes. This is common in the halls of Torvaldsland. Obviously Cos cannot survey the entire delta. She cannot investigate every rush, every stem of rence. She cannot, with adequacy, patrol every soft, dark foot of its perimeter. "They would be seized, ravished, and enjoyed," he said. "They would be seized by the hair, knelt, wine poured down their throats, spilling over their breasts and bodies, forced to dance drunkenly, put to their bellies, their lips to the feet of men, and ordered to beg for use. Then, huddled together, kept in place with the lash, they might be gambled for. And the evening might then end pleasantly as they, the winnings of men, caressed into supplicatory beasts, thrashed on the carpets and rushes. The buyers and sellers, and lookers-on, the dealers, the idlers, the porters, the curious, the men in the warehouse, I think, noticed nothing of what was passing amongst them, no more than trees, or rushes bending in the wind, might have noticed the passage amongst them of some silent, patient, sinuous, stealthy form, almost invisible, certainly unnoticed, intent on its own business, which had nothing to do with theirs. "Houses" register swordsmen, accrediting them in virtue of tests of skills. Few applicants qualify. Full members of a house will be registered swordsmen, but not all registered swordsmen are members of a house. Seeing this, men suddenly began to withdraw from the vicinity. The trees, the rushes, so to speak, had suddenly become aware of what might be amongst them.
I reached down from the rush craft and took a palm of water into my hand and touched my tongue to it. Thassa could not be far beyond. I took the triangular-bladed tem-wood paddle and moved the small craft, light and narrow, large enough scarcely for one man, ahead. It was formed of pliant, tubular, lengthy Vosk rushes, bound with marsh vine. A brightly plumaged bird sprang from the rushes to my left, screaming and beating its sudden way into the blue sky. In a moment it had darted again downward to be lost in the rushes, the waving spore stalks, the seed pods of various growths of the Gorean tidal marshes. It was difficult to see more than a few feet ahead; sometimes I could see no further than the lifted prow of my small craft, as it nosed its way among the rushes and the frequent rence plants. I paddled along, gently, kneeling on the rushes of my small, narrow craft. I looked down at the long, heavy, leather-wrapped bow of supple Ka-la-na wood in the bottom of the rush craft. I flicked a salt leach from the side of my light rush craft with the corner of the tem-wood paddle. On river barges, for hundreds of pasangs, I had made my way down the Vosk, but where the mighty Vosk began to break apart and spread into its hundreds of shallow, constantly shifting channels, becoming lost in the vast tidal marshes of its delta, moving toward gleaming Thassa, the Sea, I had abandoned the barges, purchasing from rence growers on the eastern periphery of the delta supplies and the small rush craft which I now propelled through the rushes and sedge, the wild rence plants. In many places it is too shallow to float even the great flat-bottomed barges and, more importantly, a path for them would have to be cut and chopped, foot by foot, through the thickets of rush and sedge, and the tangles of marsh vine. The most important reason for not finding a guide, of course, even among the eastern rence growers, is that the delta is claimed by Port Kar, which lies within it, some hundred pasangs from its northwestern edge, bordering on the shallow Tamber Gulf, beyond which is gleaming Thassa, the Sea. I saw the girl ahead, through a break in the rushes, some fifty yards beyond. Almost at the same time she looked up, startled. In her hand was a curved throwing stick, used for hunting birds. It is not a boomerang, which would be largely useless among the sedges and rushes, but it would, of course, float, and might be recovered and used indefinitely. I moved the rush craft toward her, but not swiftly. Instantly there was a great cry from all sides, and, breaking through the rushes and sedge, dozens of rence craft, bound with marsh vine, thrust into view, each poled by one man, with another in the prow, a two- or three-pronged marsh spear uplifted. My weapons were taken. My clothing was removed. I was thrown forward on my face in the rush craft. The girl stepped lightly onto my craft and stood with one foot on either side of my body. She was handed the pole with which she had propelled her own craft, which craft was tied to another of the rence craft of the men who had come from the rushes and sedge. My ankles had been unbound only long enough to push me stumbling from the rush craft, among the shouting women and men and children, to the throne of Ho-Hak. "Cut there," said the girl, moving the rush craft into a thicket of rence.
"Buy me," she begged. "Buy me!" The marks of the rush mat were on her back. I would be grateful at night even for a rush mat.
It was late in the afternoon, the fourteenth Gorean Ahn I would have guessed. Some swarms of insects hung in the sedge here and there but I had not been much bothered; it was late in the year, and most of the Gorean insects likely to make life miserable for men bred in, and frequented, areas in which bodies of unmoving, fresh water were plentiful. On river barges, for hundreds of pasangs, I had made my way down the Vosk, but where the mighty Vosk began to break apart and spread into its hundreds of shallow, constantly shifting channels, becoming lost in the vast tidal marshes of its delta, moving toward gleaming Thassa, the Sea, I had abandoned the barges, purchasing from rence growers on the eastern periphery of the delta supplies and the small rush craft which I now propelled through the rushes and sedge, the wild rence plants. In many places it is too shallow to float even the great flat-bottomed barges and, more importantly, a path for them would have to be cut and chopped, foot by foot, through the thickets of rush and sedge, and the tangles of marsh vine. The most important reason for not finding a guide, of course, even among the eastern rence growers, is that the delta is claimed by Port Kar, which lies within it, some hundred pasangs from its northwestern edge, bordering on the shallow Tamber Gulf, beyond which is gleaming Thassa, the Sea. The calls of marsh gants, a kind of piping whistle, seemed more frequent now, and somewhat closer. I looked behind me, and to the sides. Yet, not surprisingly, because of the rence, the rushes and sedge, I could not see the birds. In her hand was a curved throwing stick, used for hunting birds. It is not a boomerang, which would be largely useless among the sedges and rushes, but it would, of course, float, and might be recovered and used indefinitely. Instantly there was a great cry from all sides, and, breaking through the rushes and sedge, dozens of rence craft, bound with marsh vine, thrust into view, each poled by one man, with another in the prow, a two- or three-pronged marsh spear uplifted. She was handed the pole with which she had propelled her own craft, which craft was tied to another of the rence craft of the men who had come from the rushes and sedge. With the pole she began to propel my rush craft through the sedge, the several other craft accompanying us, on one or the other side, or following. The sun was low now and insects moved in the sedge. The water glistened in the dusk, moving in small bright circles about the stems of rushes. Lost among the rushes and sedge, out in the darkness of the marsh, some hundred yards from the rence islands, two of which were burning, Telima, bound, and I, a garland of rence flowers bloodied in my hair, watched the movement of torches, listened to the shouts of men, the screams of women, the cries of children. It is sometimes difficult for even a small rence craft to make its way through the tangles of rushes and sedge in the delta. Soon, shielded by rushes and sedge, we had the first of the narrow, high-prowed barges abeam. This was their flagship. The warriors in the craft, climbing on the rowing benches, were crowded amidships and aft, even on the tiller deck, looking back at the barge line behind them, trying to make out the shouting, the confusion. Some of the slaves, chained at their benches, were trying to stand and see what might be the matter. On the small foredeck of the barge, beneath the high, curved prow, stood the officer and Henrak, both looking aft. The officer, angrily, was shouting the length of the barge to its oar-master, who now stood on the tiller deck, looking back toward the other barges, his hands on the sternrail. On the high, curved prow, to which was bound, naked, the lithe, dark-haired girl, there stood a lookout, he, too, looking backward, shielding his eyes. Below the prow, in the marsh water, the slaves in the punt stopped cutting at the sedge and marsh vine that blocked their way. I stood in the small craft, shielded by rushes and sedge. My feet were spread; my heels were aligned with the target; my feet and body stood at right angles to the target line; my head was sharply turned to my left; I drew the sheaf arrow to its pile, until the three half-feathers of the Vosk gull lay at my jawbone; I took breath and then held it, sighting over the pile; there must be no movement; then I released the string.
The shaft, at the distance, passed completely through his body, flashing beyond him and vanishing among the rushes and sedges in the distance. Then warriors climbed down to the punt, to help the slaves cut marsh vine and sedge, to clear the way, but these warriors, exposed, fell easy prey to the birds of the bow. When the rence craft was lost, some hundred yards from the barges, among the reeds and sedge, I had her secure the craft. I awakened stiff in the cold of the marsh dawn, hearing the movement of the wind through the dim sedges, the cries of an occasional marsh gant darting among the rushes. Then she poled us to the vicinity of the barges. They seemed lonely and gray in the morning light. Always keeping us shielded by thickets of rush and sedge, she circled the six barges, fastened together. |
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