Swordsmen of Gor

“It is not the season,” he said.

“I see,” I said.

I had then more evidence that our friend, Pertinax, and perhaps his slave, Constantina, were not what they pretended to be. For one who did not know the ways of Port Kar, it would be a natural assumption, one I pretended to make, that dressing crews would shape and plank a great deal of the wood before shipping it to the south. Indeed, I had often thought that that would be a sensible practice. On the other hand, the artisans of the arsenal, under the command of the master shipwrights, attended to these matters in the arsenal itself. The rationale for this, as it had been explained to me, was that each mast, each strake, each plank, each article of the ship, was to be shaped and customized under the supervision of the arsenal’s naval architects. Accordingly, it would be rare, if it was allowed at all, given the practices of Port Kar, and perhaps the vanity and arrogance of her craftsmen, intending to control to the greatest extent possible every detail of their work, to allow this carpentry to take place in a remote venue in which they had no direct supervision.

I would learn later, however, something earlier suspected, that something along these lines was taking place within the forest itself, outside the reserves, some pasangs to the south.

It had to do with the intruders, and the river, the Alexandra.

And it had little to do, I conjectured, even then, with the reserves of Port Kar and the needs of her arsenal.

“Foresters,” I said, “normally cluster their huts, in small palisaded enclaves, but I saw no other huts here, nor a palisade.”

Constantina cast a swift glance at me, and Pertinax looked down.

“The village is elsewhere,” he said. “This is an outpost hut, near the coast, where we may watch for round ships.”

“I see,” I said.

The “round ships” are cargo ships.

The Gorean “round ship” is not round, of course, though the Gorean would translate as I have it. It is merely that the ratio of keel to beam is greater in the long ship, or ship of war, more length of keel to width of beam, than in the “round ship.”

The round ship is designed for the carrying of cargo. The long ship is designed for speed and maneuverability. It is like a knife in the water.

“You are of the warriors, I take it,” said Pertinax.

“Why should you think so?” I asked.

“You carry yourself as a warrior,” said Pertinax. “Also, your weapon seems such as theirs.”

It was the Gorean short sword, or gladius, light, easily unsheathed, convenient, designed for wickedly close work, to move behind the guard of longer, heavier weapons, to slip about buffeted shields or bucklers. It was pointed for thrusting, double-edged for slashing. Lifted and shaken it could part silk.

“I have fought,” I said.

“You could be a mercenary,” he said.

“Yes,” I said.

“But I think you are of the warriors,” he said.

“Perhaps of the assassins,” I said.

“You do not have the eyes of an assassin,” he said.

“What sort of eyes are those?” I asked.

“Those of a fee killer, an assassin,” he said.

“I see,” I said.

“You are a tarnsman, are you not?” asked Pertinax.

“I have not said so,” I said.

“But you are, are you not?”

“I have ridden,” I said.

“Those who know the tarn are not as other men,” he said.

“They are as other men,” I said. “It is merely that they have learned the tarn.”

“Then they are different afterwards,” he said.

“Perhaps,” I said.

“If they have survived,” he said.

“Yes,” I said.

Many have died learning the tarn. The tarn is a dangerous bird, aggressive, carnivorous, often treacherous. The wingspan of many tarns is in the neighborhood of forty feet. Humans are small beside them. Many human beings will not approach them. It, like many wild beasts, can sense fear, and that stimulates its aggression. In facing a tarn a human being has little but will to place between himself and the beak and talons. To be sure many tarns are domesticated, so to speak, raised from the egg in the vicinity of humans, taught to expect their food from them, accustomed to harnessing from the age of the chick, and so on. In the past domestic tarns were sometimes freed, to hunt in the wild, and later to return to their cots, sometimes to the blasts of the tarn whistle. That is seldom done now. A hungry tarn is quite dangerous, you see, and the reed of its domesticity is fragile. There is no assurance that its strike will be directed on a tabuk or wild tarsk, or verr. Too, it is not unknown for such tarns to revert, so to speak. I think no tarn is that far from the wild. In their blood, it is said, are the wind and the sky.

I thought of a tarn once known, a sable monster, whose challenge scream could be heard for pasangs, Ubar of the Skies.

There had been a woman, Elizabeth Cardwell, whom I, for her own good, had hoped to rescue from the perils of Gor, and return to Earth, but she had fled with the tarn, to escape that fate. When the tarn returned I drove him away in a foolish rage. I had encountered the tarn again, years later, in the Barrens, and we had again been one, but at the end of local wars I had freed him again, that he might again take his place as the master of a mighty flock, that he might be again awing in broad, lonely skies, be again a prince amongst clouds, a lord amongst winds, that he might be again regent and king ruling over the vast grasslands he surveyed.

The woman, predictably, had fallen slave.

Encountering her I had left her slave.

I had encountered her again, later, in the Tahari.

Once, I would have given her the gift of Earth, returning her to the liberties, such as they are, of her native world, but she had fled. She had chosen Gor. It had been her choice.

Where was she now?

She was now in a collar, where she belonged.

I supposed I should sell her, perhaps to the mercy of Cosians, or into the beaded leather collars of the Barrens, or perhaps south to Schendi. Those of the Barrens and Schendi know well what to do with white female slaves.

She had made her choice.

She had wagered. She had lost.

She looked well, as other women, in her collar.

“But you are a tarnsman, are you not?” persisted Pertinax.

“I have ridden,” I said. I was not clear why this might be important to him.

“I think the tabuk strips, the suls and turpah, the soup, all, must be ready,” said Pertinax. “Let us have supper.”

The hut was now redolent with the odors of which, for a forester, at least, must have seemed a feast.

“There is paga,” said Pertinax.

“Of the brewery of Temus of Ar?” I asked.

“Yes,” said Pertinax.

“It must be rare in the forests,” I said.

“Yes,” said Pertinax.

“It is my favorite,” I said.

“I am glad to hear it,” said Pertinax.

“Serve the men, slave,” said Constantina.

Cecily looked at her, startled.