Tribesmen of Gor (10 page)

     
"Do you know her number in the pens?" asked the officer.

     
"87432,"1 said.

     
"Information such as this is usually confidential to the municipality," said the officer.

     
I placed a silver tarsk on the table.

 
    
Without taking it he went to a set of heavy, leaved books, bound in heavy, black leather, on a nearby shelf.

     
"She was bought for two tarsks, from a caravan master named Zad of the Oasis of Farad," he said.

     
"I am more interested," I said, "in who purchased her."

     
"She was sold for four tarsks," said the officer.

     
"To whom?" I asked.

 
    
"Keep your tarsk," said the man, wryly. "There is no name given."

     
"Do you remember the girl?" I asked.

     
"No," he said.

     
"Why have you not recorded a name?" I asked.

     
"No name was given, apparently," he said.

     
"Do you often sell women thusly?" I asked. ·

     
"Yes," he said. "It is the money in which we are interested.
    
What is it to us what might be the name of the buyer?"

     
I checked the book myself. Its entries were not coded.

 
    
"Keep the tarsk," I said to the man. Then I left the office of the slave master of Tor. I had failed to learn who it was who had purchased the girl Veema, who perhaps had sent her as a message girl to Samos of Port Kar. To me the slave master of Tor, within the normal discrepancies of the office, seemed an honest enough fellow.

 
    
I was satisfied that he did not know to whom had been sold the girl Veema, 87432, Turian Pen Number. I recalled the message which she had borne. "Beware Abdul."

     
I bade the slave master farewell.

 
    
In the bazaar I stopped, seeming to contemplate mirrors. The four men I had seen earlier, two large ones, two small ones, in white burnooses, still followed.

     
I had assumed the name Hakim, a Tahari name, one suitable for a merchant.

     
I would choose the place with some care.

 
    
I passed a stall of perfumers, and thought of Saphrar of Turia. Then I passed a shop where the high, light kaiila saddles were being made. One could also buy there, saddle blankets, quirts, bells and kaiila reins. The kaiila rein is a single rein, very light, plaited of various leathers. There are often ten to a dozen strips of tanned, dyed leather in a single rein. Each individual strip, interestingly, given the strength of the rein, is little thicker than a stout thread. The strips are cut with knives, and it requires great skill to cut them. The rein, carefully plaited, is tied through a hole drilled in the right nostril of the kaiila. It passes under the animal's jaw to the left. When one wishes to guide the animal to the left one draws the rein left; when one wishes to guide it right one pulls right, drawing the rein over the animal's neck, with pressure against the left cheek. To stop the animal one draws back. To start or hasten the animal, one kicks it in the flanks, or uses the long kaiila quirt.

 
    
I passed one of the wells of Tor. There were steps, broad, flat, worn, in concentric circles, leading down to the water. At this time of year eight of the steps were uncovered by the water. Many came there for water. I saw children on their hands and knees lapping water, women filling jugs, men submerging bags, the air bubbling up as the bags filled. Like most water in the Tahari the water of Tor was slightly salty and unclear.

     
Casually glancing about I saw the four men. I assessed them, determining in my mind who would be the swiftest, the most dangerous, the leader; who would be the next most dangerous; and then the others.

 
    
I saw the water carrier, too, with the brass cups. It struck me suddenly strange that he should be in the area of the bazaar, which, in the lower area in the city, is in the vicinity of the wells. Surely few would call to purchase water where it lay free at hand. He descended the steps and submerged his bag, grinning at me, remembering me from earlier in the day. I smiled at him, turning away. He was a simple, poor fellow, harmless, servile, slight. I felt myself a fool. Of course he would have to come to the bazaar area. What would I have him do, fill his bag with the white dust of Tor's higher terraces?

I chose a side street, and another street from that, which terminated in a blind wall. There were few about.

 
   
I heard the men hurrying toward me. I swung the walking chains I had purchased lightly in my hand, not looking back, noting the shadows.

 
    
They would think I was trapped in the alley, with its blind wall. I had chosen this alley, that they might make their move swiftly, at my choosing, not truly theirs. Also, the alley was open behind them. I gave them access to flight. I had no wish to kill them. It seemed to me most probable they were simple brigands.

     
I saw the shadows, darting, heard the rush of robes.

 
    
Laughing, with the elation of the warrior, I turned, swiftly hurling the walking chains, spinning once, through the air. They lashed about the face of the leader. It had taken only an instant, the chain leaving my hand, to determine that he was exactly where I had expected him to be, as he would have been at any time in following me, had I earlier turned, slightly to my right. He cried out, the chains whipping about his face. I used his body to block the two men on my left. I leaped, knees bent, body turned, legs like compressed springs, toward the man on the leader's left. One foot struck him in the chest; the other snapped his head back. I slipped behind the leader, seized the small fellow to his right by the arm and hurled him headfirst into the wall. The last fellow I lifted from his feet and, turning, hurled him against the same wall as the other. He struck it, upside down, full along his back and head, and tumbling, fell beside the other fellow, who lay inert. The leader, face bleeding, wiped the blood from his forehead from his eyes, stepping back.

     
"You are of the warriors," he whispered. Then he turned about, and fled.

     
I did not pursue him.

 
    
I returned to the bazaar, and inquired where steel might be purchased, and kaiila. I was informed by a ragged youngster, whom I rewarded with a copper tarsk. The weapon makers' street was close on the bazaar. The kaiila pens in Tor are outside her south gate.

On the way to the street of weapon makers I again passed the water carrier. His bag on his shoulder was now, again, damp, dark, bulging.

     
"Tal, Master," said he to me.

     
"Tal," said I to him.

 
I walked to the street of the weapon makers. I was anxious to make the acquaintance of the Tahari scimitar.

     
"There will be war between the Kavars and the Aretai," I heard a man say.

     
I walked to the street of the weapon makers. Lightly, in my right hand, I swung walking chains. They would look well on the slim ankles of the lovely Alyena, a slave girl I was having bearded and trained in the pens of Tor.

 
    
This night I thought I would have my supper at the Pomegranate. I had heard their dancers were superb.

3

DO NOT PARTICIPATE IN WHAT OCCURS

IN A COURTYARD;

I RECOVER A SILVER TARSK

 
    
The war kaiila, rearing on its hind legs, its claws, however, sheathed, lunged at the other animal, its clawed back feet thrusting with an explosion of sand away from the ground; the long neck darted forward, the long, graceful head, its fanged jaws bound shut with leather, struck at the man astride the other beast. He thrust the jaws away with the buckler, and, rearing in the stirrups of his high saddle, slashed at me with the leather-sheathed, curved blade. I turned the stroke with my own sheathed blade, it, too, in the light, ornamented exercise sheath.

 
The kaiila, both of them, with the swiftness, the agility of cats, spun, half crouching, squealing in frustration, and again lunged toward one another. With the light rein I pulled my kaiila to the left as we passed, and the man, trying to reach me, was, startled, off balance. With a backward sweeping cut the sheathed blade struck him, as he hung from his saddle, on the back of the neck.

     
He swept past me and spun his kaiila, then jerked it up short, back on its haunches in the sand.

     
I readied myself for another passage.

 
    
For ten days had we trained, for ten Gorean hours a day. Of the past forty passages eight had been divided, no blood adjudged drawn. In thirty-two I had been adjudged victorious, nineteen times to the death cut.

 
    
He pulled his sand veil, yellow, from his dark face, down about his throat. He thrust his burnoose back further over his shoulders. He was Harif, said to be the finest blade in Tor.

     
"Bring salt," he said to the judge.

     
The judge gestured to a boy, who brought him a small dish of salt.

     
The warrior slipped from his saddle, and, on foot, approached me.

     
I remained mounted.

 
    
"Cut the leather from the jaws of your kaiila," said he. Then he gestured to the boy, that the boy should remove the claw sheaths of the beast. He did so, carefully, the beast moving, nervous, shifting in the sand.

 
    
I discarded the exercise sheath, and, with the bared blade, parted the leather that had bound the jaws of the kaiila. The leather sprang from the blade. Silk, dropped upon the scimitar of the Tahari, divided, falls free, floating, to the floor. The beast reared, its claws raking the air, and threw back its head, biting at the sun.

     
I lifted the curved blade of the scimitar. It flashed. I sheathed it, and slipped from the saddle, giving the rein of the mount to the boy.

     
I faced the warrior.

     
"Ride free," he said.

     
"I will, "I said.

     
"I can teach you nothing more," he said.

     
I was silent.

     
"Let there be salt between us," he said.

     
"Let there be salt between us," I said.

 
    
He placed salt from the small dish on the back of his right wrist. He looked at me. His eyes were narrow. "I trust," said he, "you have not made jest of me."

"No," I said.

     
"In your hand," he said, "steel is alive, like a bird."

     
The judge nodded assent. The boy's eyes shone. He stood back.

 
    
"I have never seen this, to this extent, in another man." He looked at me.
  
"Who are you?" he asked.

     
I placed salt on the back of my right wrist. "One who shares salt with you," I said.

     
"It is enough," he said.

     
I touched my tongue to the salt in the sweat of his right wrist, and he touched his tongue to the salt on my right wrist.
 
"We have shared salt," he said.

     
He then placed in my hand the golden tarn disk, of Ar, with which I had purchased my instruction.

     
"It is yours," I said.

     
"How can that be?" he asked.

     
"I do not understand," I said.

     
He smiled. "We have shared salt," he said.

 
    
I was returning to my compartment in Tor, from the tents of Farouk of Kasra. He was a merchant. He was camping in the vicinity of the city while purchasing kaiila for a caravan to the Oasis of Nine Wells. This oasis is held by Suleiman, master of a thousand lances, Suleiman of the Aretai.

 
    
It had been at my invitation that Farouk had consented to judge the passages at arms, constituting the final phases of the scimitar training.

     
It had not been inconvenient for him, for he was inspecting kaiila at the corrals near the southern gate of Tor.