Swordsmen of Gor

“It is the third watch,” I said. “I shall make some rounds, and see that all is well.”

“Splendid,” said Lord Nishida.

“You have given me much to think about,” I said.

“That was my intention,” said Lord Nishida.

I rose to my feet, bowed, and turned away.

“Tarl Cabot, tarnsman,” said Lord Nishida.

“Yes?” I said.

” Sake,” he said, “is to be sipped.”

“I shall remember,” I said.

I then left the double tent.

Chapter Twenty-Five

a lantern will fail to convey its signal in due course; i am invited to an interview

Outside the tent I stopped, and lifted my head, and looked up, into the night, to the stars.

They are very bright in the Gorean night.

Many on Earth, I supposed, had never seen stars so.

I took some deep breaths, that I might be steadied.

I wanted to clear my head, of the lingering whispers of paga, and the fumes of confusion and fear.

I touched the shoulder strap of the scabbard. I was fond of leather, steel, the cry of the tarn, the softness of slaves. Such things were comprehensible to me. I did not care for what had occurred in the tent of Lord Nishida. I did not care for the ambiguities of men, the opacities of motivation, the secret springs which governed the engines of diplomacy and policy. I did not care for the veils with which reality so frequently chose to clothe herself, nor for the thousand mirrors, with their ten thousand reflections and images, each claiming that the truth is here, the ten thousand reflections and images, mirages, betraying belief and hope.

I began to make my way through the camp, having no destination clearly in mind.

It was the third watch.

I had spoken of rounds to Lord Nishida. One post or another might be passed. I wanted time to think.

The night was warm.

“How goes the night?” I asked a fellow.

“Well, Commander,” he said.

I was not pleased with what had occurred in the tent of Lord Nishida. I had been manipulated, easily, expertly. I supposed it was well that I had learned what I had, but truth can draw blood. Many men, I supposed, were better off without it. Lord Nishida was brilliant, and cunning. I did not dare to suppose that I understood him. Some men move others with words, as others move the pieces on the red and yellow board of kaissa. I thought Lord Nishida such a man. I did not know if he spoke truth to me, or if he spoke to me merely what he wished me to take for truth. I wondered if others understood him. He must, in his own heart, I thought, have been much alone. Perhaps he wished it that way. I did not know. Seldom are the burdens of command easily borne, particularly if one is possessed of a conscience. Many in power, I suspected, did not labor under that handicap. I suspected Lord Nishida, for better or for worse, did not. I suspected that he would pursue a project without reservation or hesitation. I thought him purposeful, and probably unscrupulous, and perhaps cruel. If one did labor so, handicapped with a conscience, I suspected it likely that others, not so slowed, not so burdened, would be before him, be first to seize the scepter, sit upon the throne, and place about their necks the medallion of the Ubar. I wondered if Lord Nishida was truly loyal to his shogun, and, if so, I wondered if his shogun was such as to deserve such loyalty, or might he, rather, in his way, regard lightly the feudal pledges which would bind a lord and vassal. Did Lord Nishida covet the shogunate? Is not power the drug of all drugs, the most dangerous of all, transcending the trivialities, the banalities, of chemistry, to which even the most professedly humble and self-effacing might be irremediably addicted? But perhaps he was loyal. There are such men, men to whom the treasure of their word, once given, however foolishly, commands the single irrepudiable allegiance. What of his own status? Was it secure? Perhaps there were others who aspired to the pavilion of the daimyo. Did not Lord Nishida himself, as daimyos and shoguns, as Ubars, and tyrants, and kings and princes, sit uneasily beneath the sword of Damocles? Men were men, I thought, whether of Ar, or Cos, or Schendi, or of the Pani.

I touched the shoulder strap of the scabbard, again, for reassurance. It was tangible. So many realities were not.

Animals are innocent, I thought. They kill, and feed. Men smile, and soothe, and praise, and then kill, and feed.

Is it honor and the codes, I wondered, which separate us from animals, or, rather, is it they which bring us closer to the innocence of the animals.

“How goes the night?” I asked.

“Well, Commander,” I was assured.

There were apparently spies in the camp, and perhaps an assassin. If Lord Nishida was correct at least one of the five men I had met in his tent was a spy, and one was an assassin. If one were an assassin then Lord Nishida was, indeed, so to speak, living with an ost. To be sure, if the assassin were also a spy, or the spy, to be sure a role unusual for one of that caste, I supposed that Lord Nishida was in no immediate danger, for the spy would wish to gather information, and would be unlikely to make his strike, until his reports were complete, or no longer required.

Sometimes free women, collared and branded as slaves, were recruited for purposes of espionage. Is not the beautiful woman, curled at one’s feet, avid to learn the secrets of a house, petulant and pouting if denied, ideally suited to gather the flowers of intelligence? Is it not a natural, and simple, and innocent thing to purchase one of their smiles, at so small a cost as an expression, an unimportant, dropped word, which must, in any case, be meaningless to them? Some did not realize that as soon as they were branded and collared they were truly slaves, and others, doubtless, expected to be freed. They would not be freed, of course, none of them, for their slavery was intended by their employers from the beginning. Is it not a fit recompense for their treachery? Let them stay then in their collars, and, bound at a punishment ring, absorb the lessons of the whip, informing them as to the reality of their condition and the nature of their future. Sometimes, too, amusingly, one of these women, intended for a given house, finds that house outbid, and finds herself wagoned away to another house, perhaps out of the city. Her lamentations and protests, too, soon cease beneath the whip. She learns, too, she is then a true slave, and discovers she is perhaps a thousand pasangs from the house of her intended destination. To her horror, she soon realizes, too, that her recruiters will not attempt to reclaim her, for that might draw attention to themselves and their intentions. She then learns the collar is truly on her, that collar so closely encircling her lovely neck, and so securely, so nicely, locked. She, too, is now a slave. And another woman may easily be obtained to replace her, one with whose placement the employers will hope to have better success. A true slave will never betray her master, for she understands the terrible gravity of such a thing, and her absolute vulnerability. Too, she is now at his feet, and is his slave, and knows herself his slave, and hopes only to please him. To be sure, she might be seized and tortured, and would then speak all she knows. One does not blame her for that, nor any human being, if the torture is exquisitely done. So slaves are kept in ignorance. They cannot reveal what they do not know. Too, it is theirs to serve and please, not to be apprised of the designs and doings of men. Curiosity, it is said, is not becoming in a kajira. The collar is often a woman’s greatest safeguard. Slaves are commonly spared, even in the sacking of a city. But so, too, of course, are verr, tarsks, kaiila, and such.

In the distance the feast was still in progress. I heard strains of a song, an anthem of Cos. Interesting, I thought, how mercenaries, outlaws, renegades, even those who have betrayed and repudiated their Home Stones, remember such things.

I was passed by some fellows returning to their quarters, some leading leashed slaves, their hands tied behind their backs. Others passed, too, with slaves in custody, but differently, the slaves bent over, in leading