Tribesmen of Gor (20 page)

     
I bowed. "Suleiman Pasha is most generous." I said.

 
    
I heard a noise from afar, some shouting. I did not think either Ibn Saran or Suleiman heard it.

 
    
Alyena stood on the scarlet tiles, head back, sweating, breathing heavily, nude save for her ornaments and collar, the bangles about her ankles and wrists, the armlets, the several chains and pendants looped about her neck. She brushed back her hair with her right hand.

 
    
I now heard some more shouting. I heard, too, incongruous in the palace of the Pasha of Nine Wells, from afar, the squealing of a kaiila.

     
"What is going on?" asked Suleiman. He stood, robes swirling.

     
Alyena looked about.

 
    
At that instant, buffeting guards aside, sending them sprawling, to our amazement, in the carved, turret-shaped portal of the great room, claws scratching on the tiles, appeared a war kaiila, in full trappings, mounted by a veiled warrior in swirling burnoose. Guards rushed forward. His scimitar leapt from its sheath and they fell back, bleeding, reeling to the tiles.

 
    
He thrust his scimitar hack in his sheath. He threw back his head and laughed, and then tore down the veil, that we might look on his face. He grinned at us.

     
"It is the bandit, Hassan!" cried a guard.

     
I drew my scimitar and stood between him and Suleiman.

 
    
The kaiila pranced. The man uncoiled a long desert whip from his saddle.

"I come for a slave," he said.

The long blade of the whip lashed forth. Alyena, her head back, cried out with pain. Four coils of the whip, biting into her, lashing, snapped tight about her waist. He yanked her, stumbling, the prisoner of his whip, to the side of his kaiila. By the hair he yanked her across his saddle.

 
    
He lifted his hand to us. "Farewell!" he cried. "And my thanks!" He then spun the kaiila and, as guards swarmed after him, to our astonishment, leapt the kaiila, catlike, between pillers, through one of the great arched windows of the palace room. He struck a roof below, and then another roof, and then was to the ground, racing away, men turning to look after him.

 
    
I, and others, turned back from the window. On the cushions lay Suleiman, Pasha of Nine Wells. I ran to him. I saw Hamid, who was the lieutenant of Shakar, captain of the Aretai, slip swiftly behind hangings, a dagger, bloodied, held within his cloak.

 
    
I turned Suleiman. His eyes were open. "Who struck me?" he said. There was blood deep in the silk of the cushions.

 
    
Ibn Saran drew forth his scimitar. He did not seem languid now. His eyes blazed. He seemed a silken panther, lithe, tensed for the spring. He pointed the scimitar at me. "He!" he cried. "I saw it! He did it!"

     
I leaped to my feet.

     
"Kavar spy!" cried Ibn Saran. "Assassin!"

     
I spun about, facing steel on all sides.

     
"Cut him down!" cried Ibn Saran, raising his scimitar.

6

A SLAVE GIRL TESTIFIES

The bodies of the two girls, stripped, lay on the narrow rectangles, networks, of knotted ropes, on the racks. The ropes, slung, were pressed down with their weight. Their hands were at their sides, but ropes were attached to them, and fixed on the axle of the windlass, above their heads. Both wore collars. Their ankles were roped to the foot of the device.

I knelt on the circle of accusation. My wrists were manacled behind my back. On my neck, hammered, was a heavy ring of iron, with two welded rings, one on each side, to which chains were attached, these chains in the hands of guards. I was stripped. My ankles were chained.

"Cut him down!" had cried Ibn Sarah, raising his scimitar.

"No!" had said Shakar, captain of the Aretai, staying his arm. "That would be too easy."

Smiling, Ibn Saran had sheathed his weapon.

Ropes had been put upon me.

I struggled in the chains. I was helpless.

"Let the testimony of slaves be taken," said the judge.

 
    
The red-haired girl on the rack cried out in misery. The testimony of slaves, in a Gorean court, is commonly taken under torture.

 
    
Two brawny male slaves, stripped to the waist, spun the two handles on the racks.

The red-haired girl, she who had been one of the matched set of slaves, who had had in her charge the tray of spoons and sugars, wept. Her wrists, and those of the other girl, as the long wooden handles turned, were pulled up and over her head. The red-haired girl writhed on the cords. "Master!" she wept.

 
    
Ibn Saran, in silken kaftan, and kaffiyeh and agal, strode to the rack.

     
"Do not be frightened, pretty Zaya," he said. "Remember to tell the truth, and only the truth."

"I will, Master!" she wept. "I will."

 
    
At a sign from the judge the handle moved once, dropping the wooden pawl into the ratchet notch. Her body was now tight on the rack; her toes were pointed; her hands were high over her head, the rough rope slipped up her wrists, prohibited from moving further by its knots and the wide part of her hands.

     
"Listen carefully, little Zaya," said Ibn Saran. "And think carefully."

     
The girl nodded.

     
"Did you see who it was who struck noble Suleiman Pasha?"

 
    
"Yes." she cried. "It was he! He! It was he, as you, my Master, have informed the court." The girl turned her head to the side, to regard me. "He!" she cried.

     
Ibn Saran smiled.

     
"Hamid it was!" I cried, struggling to my feet. "It was Hamid, lieutenant to Shakar!"

 
    
Hamid, standing to one side, did not deign to look upon me. There were angry murmurs from the men assembled in the court.

     
"Hamid." said Shakar, not pleased, standing near, "is a trusted man." And he added, "And he is Aretai."

     
"Should you persist in accusing Hamid," said the judge, "your penalties will be the more severe."

     
"He it was," said I, "who struck Suleiman."

     
"Kneel," said the judge.

     
I knelt.

     
The judge signaled again to the slave who controlled the handle of the red-haired girl's rack. "No, please!" she screamed.

 
    
Once more the handle moved and the pawl slipped into a new notch on the ratchet. Her body, now, was lifted from the network of knotted ropes and hung, suspended, between the two axles of the rack.

     
"Masters!" she cried. "Masters! I have told the truth! The truth!"

     
The pawl was moved yet another notch. The girl, now hurt, screamed.

     
"Have you told the truth, pretty Zaya?" inquired Ibn Saran.

     
"Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes!" she wept.

 
    
At a signal from the judge the handle was released. The axle of the windlass at the girl's head spun back and her body fell into the network of knotted ropes. One of the slaves removed the ropes from her wrists and ankles. She could not move, so terrified she was. He then threw her to the side of a wall, where another slave, pushing against the side of her neck, fastened a snap catch on her collar, securing her by a chain to a ring in the floor. She lay there, trembling.

 
    
"Let the testimony of the second slave be taken," said the judge.

 
    
Her wrists were already over her head. She was stripped. She looked at me. She wore a collar.

     
"Think now, my pretty," said Ibn Saran. "Think carefully, my pretty."

 
    
She was the other girl of the matched set, the other white-skinned wench, who had had in her charge the silvered, long-spouted vessel of black wine.

     
"Think carefully now, pretty Vella," said Ibn Saran.

     
"I will, Master," she said.

     
"If you tell the truth," he said, "you will not be hurt."

     
"I will tell the truth, Master," she said.

     
Ibn Saran nodded to the judge.

 
    
The judge lifted his hand and the handle on the girl's rack moved once. She closed her eyes. Her body was now tight on the rack; her toes were pointed; her hands were high over her head, the rope tight, taut, on her wrists.

     
"What is the truth, pretty Vella?" asked Ibn Saran.

 
    
She opened her eyes. She did not look at him. "The truth," she said, "is as Ibn Saran says."

 
    
"Who struck noble Suleiman Pasha?" asked Ibn Saran, quietly.

     
The girl turned her head to look at me. "He," she said. "He it was who struck Suleiman Pasha."

     
My face betrayed no emotion.

 
    
At a signal from the judge the slave at the handle of the girl's rack, pushing it with his two hands, moved the handle. When the pawl slipped into its notch her body was held, tight, suspended, between the two axles of the rack.

 
    
"In the confusion," said Ibn Saran, "it was he, the accused, who struck Suleiman Pasha, and then went, with others, to the window."

     
"Yes," said the girl.

     
"I saw it," said Ibn Saran. "But not I alone saw it."

     
"No, Master," she said.

     
"Who else saw?" he asked.

     
"Vella and Zaya, slaves," she said.

 
    
"Pretty Zaya," said he, "has given witness that it was the accused who struck Suleiman Pasha."

"It is true," said the girl.

     
"Why do you, slaves, tell the truth?" he asked.

     
"We are slaves," she said. "We fear to lie."

     
"Excellent," he said. She hung in the ropes, taut. She did not speak.

     
"Look now again, carefully, upon the accused."

     
She looked at me. "Yes, Master," she said.

     
"Was it he who struck Suleiman Pasha?" asked Ibn Saran "Yes, Master," she said. "It was he."

     
The judge gave a signal and the long handle of the rack, fitting through a rectangular hole in the axle, moved again.
 
The girl winced, but she did not cry out.

 
    
"Look again carefully upon the accused," said Ibn Saran. I saw her eyes upon me. "Was it he who struck Suleiman Pasha?"

     
"It was he," she said.

     
"Are you absolutely certain?" he asked.

     
"Yes," she said.

 
    
"It is enough," said the judge. He gave a signal. The handle spun back. The girl's body fell into the network of knotted ropes. She turned her face to me. She smiled, slightly.

 
    
The ropes were removed from her wrists and ankles. One of the male slaves lifted her from the rack and threw her to the foot of the wall, beside the other girl. The slave there took her by the hair, holding her head down, and, between the back of her neck and the collar, thrust a snap catch, closing it. He then, roughly, burning the side of her neck, slid the catch about her collar, to the front; there he jerked it against her collar, the chain then, which fastened her, like the other girl, to a ring in the floor, ran to her collar, under her chin. She kept her head down, a slave.

7

AM INFORMED OF

THE PITS OF KLIMA; AN ESCAPE IS ARRANGED

I lifted my head.

 
    
I smelled it, somewhere near. But I saw nothing. I tensed. I sat against the stone wall, formed of heavy blocks. I pulled my head out from the wall, but it would not move far. To the heavy collar of iron, to each of its two, heavy welded rings, one on each side, there was fastened a short chain, fixed to a ring and plate, bolted through the drilled stone. My hands, each, were manacled to the wall, too, on short chains, to my left and right. I was naked. My ankles, in close chains, were fastened to another ring, in the floor, before me, it, too, on a plate, bolted through the floor block.