Rebels of Gor (41 page)

As I left the stadium I noted, to my dismay, the departure of two tarns, northward.

There was little I could do.

Chapter Twenty-Six

What Occurred Outside the Stadium

“Do not gainsay me,” I said, angrily, to the guard on the road, that leading to the palace. “Have you not heard? The daughter of the shogun was carried away. Tonight there is no festival.”

“I have no authority to release the prisoners,” said the guard.

“I am the authority,” I said, severely. “I bring the command of the shogun. Release them from the posts and straw jackets, rope them together and I shall conduct them to the designated pen.”

“Who are you?” inquired the guard.

“Is that not clear from my habiliments?” I said, impatiently.

“Those of the secret executioners of the shogun,” said the guard, uncertainly.

“Do you wish me to remove my mask?” I asked.

“You are not to be known,” he said.

I reached to the mask, as though to tear it from my head.

“No! No, noble warrior!” he said.

My hand was tight on the mask, angrily so.

“It would be my head, were I to see your face,” he said.

“Precisely,” I said.

“The prisoners will be released and bound,” he said.

“And deliver them into my keeping,” I said.

“What pen is designated?” he asked.

“Are you curious?” I asked.

“No!” he said. “No, noble one!”

He summoned other guardsmen to assist him. There were twenty prisoners, bound to posts, each heavily enwrapped in a bulky straw jacket, the sort worn by peasants in foul weather. Now, of course, each jacket was dry, tinder dry.

“It is disappointing,” said the guard.

“Doubtless,” I said.

“We had hoped for a splendid feast,” he said.

“It was planned,” I said.

“Fortunately,” said the guard, “we had not yet added colored resins and chromatic oils.”

“Yes,” I said, “most fortunate.”

I gathered that these additions to the jacket, surely superfluous in a prosaic, routine execution, were connected with the celebratory nature of the intended feast, presumably resulting in more colorful, fiercer, longer lasting flames.

Soon the twenty were well bound, and roped together, relieved of the thick straw jackets, which remained by the posts.

The guard surveyed the coffle of prisoners.

“We can burn them later,” he said, “when the occasion is happier, and more auspicious.”

“Perhaps,” I said.

“Perhaps then, too,” he said, “we might add the tarnsman and Sumomo to the festivities.”

“Perhaps,” I said.

“How many men do you wish to accompany you?” he asked.

“None,” I said.

“Surely some,” he said.

“The location of the designated pen,” I said, “is not to be revealed.”

“I understand,” he said.

This is not unusual, that prisoners will be held in undisclosed locations. There are two major reasons for this. First, it is intended to complicate, if not frustrate, attempts to communicate with prisoners, attempts to rescue them, and such. Second, it is thought to instill fear in the general populace. Who knows where the prisoners have been taken, how long they will be held, and what is being done with them in these unknown locations? By such means an authority may see to a population’s alarm, lack of ease, and intimidation.

“And,” I said, annoyed, lifting the glaive, “do you fear that I, a wearer of the mask, and he chosen to convey the command of the shogun, am incapable of managing a small herd of twenty tarsks, helpless and tied together?”

“No, noble one,” he said.

“Thus,” I said, “you keep your head.”

“The noble one is gracious,” he said.

I did not wish to talk further with the guard, and I waved him, and his fellows, away. The Ashigaru from whom I had borrowed the robes and mask was in a nearby shed, bound and gagged. I had not broken his neck. I assumed he would, after a bit, regain consciousness. Sooner or later, of course, he would be missed, and a search would be mounted.

I addressed myself to the bound prisoners.

“Follow me!” I said. I then turned about and made my way toward several of the ancillary buildings in the vicinity of the palace. I did not even look behind me. I knew they would follow me, in line. Pani of the peasant classes tend to be polite, stolid, resigned, and reconciled, at least until a breaking point is reached, at which time they may become as secretive and clever as the urt, as subtle as the ost, as dangerous as the cornered sleen, as fierce as the enraged larl, discovering the claiming stains of a competitor in his territory.

Once we were out of sight, I would introduce myself to Haruki. He would know where it was, it was somewhere here about, here, outside the palace grounds, the concealed entry to the secret tunnel which led to the garden. With some fortune we might conceal ourselves in the tunnel until dark, after which it would be every man for himself. Surely I thought that I had long enough prevailed on the hospitality of the shogun, and might now, with good grace, take my leave.

Chapter Twenty-Seven

We Have Departed from the Tunnel

“Wade,” said Haruki. “There will be no tracks.”

Hundreds of paddies, like ridged, geometrical lakes, now reflecting the orbs of the moons, dotted the landscape for pasangs about the lands of Lord Yamada. This is also the case about the holdings of many daimyos, and, of course, about local villages, most of which were subject to one daimyo or another.

The only weapon I bore was a dagger, a
tanto
, relieved from the fellow I had dealt with following my exit from the stadium. As he had not been a warrior, he had not carried the two swords. I had discarded the glaive for it was large, and impossible to carry in a concealed manner. I supposed it would have been speculated that it might have been retained. If so, its presence might have been noted, provoking an investigation. The glaive combines the features of the stabbing spear and ax. It can take a man’s head off, but, in the thick of battle, shoulder to shoulder with one’s fellows, one would seldom have the opportunity to employ it with such an end in view. It is used more to stab and slash. It may be thrown but in battle this is seldom done. Certainly it lacks the lightness and fleetness of the javelin and the weighty penetration of the typical Gorean war spear, familiar on the continent. It can function, rather as the heavy staff, though bladed, both defensively and offensively. Rather, too, as the pike and halberd, it may be used both to break an enemy’s ranks and, when necessary, to keep him at bay. If the Pani had access to the lofty kaiila I would not doubt that the glaive would be designed additionally, like the halberd, with its hook, to dismount a rider, putting him at the mercy of the dagger. On the continent, street contingents, raised in times of need to supplement a city’s standing troops, commonly make do with knives, clubs, sharpened poles, and stones. Some cities maintain semi-military units, skirmishers, light bowmen, and slingers. Slingers may use stones or metal pellets. These are more dangerous than many understand, particularly at a short distance, and in great numbers, when a sheet of missiles in their thousands can strike foes as might a deadly hail. Certainly one of these hornet-like projectiles, almost invisible in flight, can blind a man, break a head, and cut him open. Tuchuks, incidentally, commonly do not close with the enemy, certainly not in masses, but depend on the bow and the cast quiva, or saddle knife. Whereas shield and lance may be used for fencing with an isolated foe, commonly another Tuchuk, they are most often used for riding down isolated enemies who are afoot. In battle, if troops are massed, the kaiila can be penned in, and immobilized, this rendering it susceptible to a common form of attack, being stabbed from beneath in the belly, by a crouching, lunging foe, following which the animal becomes unmanageable, is likely to throw the rider, and may eventually bleed to death. As mentioned, Tuchuks seldom close with their foe. It is not necessary. In this sense, in their way, they resemble the caste of peasants, masters of the great bow.

It had been dark in the tunnel.

There was no candle, no lamp. In such as place even the sleen would be blind.

I had conjectured it was in the vicinity of the Twentieth Ahn. The nineteen prisoners who had been sentenced to the straw jacket with Haruki had slipped, one by one, from the tunnel.

“Are you still there?” I asked Haruki.

“Yes, noble one,” he said, from, I judged, a few feet away.

“The others have gone, have they not?” I said.

“One by one,” he said.

“I heard no cries, no warnings, no clash of arms,” I said.

“They are of the countryside,” he said. “They are indistinguishable from many others. Few concern themselves with such men. They move silently. They will avoid the searching torches.”

“They will return to their villages?” I said.

“They will be accepted in others,” he said.

“Though strangers?” I said.

“There is fear and dissatisfaction in the fields,” he said. “He of one village in such times may not be a stranger to those in another village.”

In Gorean, as in several languages, the same word is used for “enemy” and “stranger.”

“It seems there might be retaliation on a fugitive’s village,” I said.

“It is possible,” said Haruki, “were the village known, and the fugitive considered dangerous. But it is not customary to punish the innocent for the crimes of the guilty. Such a practice is not likely to elevate respect for the law.”

“I see,” I said. To me that seemed a wise view. I was pleased to learn that this degree of enlightenment, or what I took to be a degree of enlightenment, prevailed in the islands.

“Too,” said Haruki, “villages are sources of wealth. One cannot tax bleached bones and ashes. Few will cast gold into the sea.”

“True,” I said.

“And it is possible that murdering many for the crimes of one, or a few,” said Haruki, “might occasion resentment.”

“That is conceivable,” I said.

“One might even, over years, dig a tunnel,” he said, “which might open into a garden.”

“Quite possibly,” I granted him.

“We are no match for gentlemen of two swords,” he said.

“I would suppose not,” I said.

“But even they,” he said, “must sometimes sleep.”

“But with a sword at their side,” I said. That would be the companion sword.

“That must be taken into consideration,” he said.

“You are locally known,” I said. “Why have you not left the tunnel?”

“Those who have departed,” he said, “did so individually. It is easier to conceal one man than two, or three. If one man is apprehended, that is preferable to the apprehension of two or three.”

“Why have you not left?” I asked.

“Soon,” he said, “those who departed will be little noted. They will be Pani amongst Pani, shadows amongst shadows.”

“Why have you not left?” I asked.

“You are not Pani,” he said. “If nothing else, your garb, and accent, would betray you.”

“I accept that risk,” I said. “Leave, while there are still Ahn to daylight.”

“We will leave together,” he said.

“No,” I said.

“You will need a guide, someone to introduce you into villages, someone to speak for you,” he said.

“I will be a handicap,” I said.

“Are you prepared to leave?” he inquired.

“Two are more likely to be apprehended than one,” I said.

“We will go now,” he said. “I think the interval has been sufficient.”

“Go,” I said to him.

“Follow me,” he said.

In the total darkness, touching the sides of the small tunnel, in which one could not stand upright, I followed Haruki.

Then we were at its far terminus, that which emerged in brush, not far from several of the smaller, ancillary buildings.

“I have one regret,” said Haruki.

“What is that?” I asked.

“I shall miss the garden,” he said.

* * *

We must, by now, be two or three Ahn from the palace grounds.

I would have preferred, in our projected escape, to have forced my way into one of the slave pens, one with which I was familiar. There would be, I had conjectured, two slaves there of interest, one to me, and the other, I suspected, in spite of what he might claim, to a friend of mine. Haruki, however, with an earnestness which seemed incongruous with his normal composure, had forbade this venture and I, however reluctantly, had acknowledged the wisdom of his counsel. First, the pens were guarded and locked shut. Second, there were several in the pens and the likelihood of removing an occupant or two without some sort of outcry or contretemps was unlikely. Thirdly, the slaves in which I was interested might not be in the same pen as before. The contents of that pen might have been rather special, being white-skinned slaves obtained for rice in the north, during the siege of the holding of Lord Temmu. Tajima, I recalled, had been annoyed at the lack of Pani slaves held behind those stout wooden bars. Presumably they had been gathered together and displayed for us with the supper of Lord Yamada in mind, white slaves who might be of interest to white masters. By now they might have been scattered about, transferred to any number of pens throughout the domain of Lord Yamada, where their labors might now be applied to the arrangement and care of the liquid meadows from which the shogun hoped to obtain his rice. Indeed, several might have been distributed amongst the shogun’s daimyos, for diverse purposes, field slaves, slaves to a daimyo’s wives, personal pleasure slaves to warriors, to officers, and even to the daimyo himself. And I recalled that Saru might even, for all I knew, be shackled at night in the palace itself. And, additionally, of course, adding a pair of slaves, and white-skinned slaves at that, would be unlikely to augur well for the success of our flight.