Swordsmen of Gor

There was a change in the breath of Constantina. She cast me a glance, almost piteously. I think she did not understand her sensations.

“Look at your master, not mine,” said Cecily, unpleasantly.

Constantina turned to Pertinax, unwillingly, it seemed, the goblet at her breasts.

“Now,” said Cecily, “lift the goblet to your lips, and, gazing over the rim at your master, kiss the goblet, tenderly, and lick it, lovingly, lingeringly, for he is your master, and he is permitting you, a mere slave, to serve him. Keep your eyes on your own master, slave!”

Constantina turned back to Pertinax.

Then she put down her head, frightened, for perhaps it was the first time she had seen him regard her as what she was, or supposedly was, a slave.

“Now,” said Cecily, “extend your arms, holding the cup, to your master, and put your head down, humbly, between your extended arms.”

This is, of course, a beautiful sight.

Pertinax, it seemed, would almost forget to accept the cup. Perhaps he was unwilling to let the moment go. Then he accepted the cup, and drank.

“Thank you,” he said.

“You do not thank her,” I informed him. “It is a great honor and privilege for a slave to be permitted to serve her master. Too, it is what she is for.”

“True,” said Pertinax.

“That was not so hard, was it, girl?” I asked Constantina.

“No,” she said.

“No, what?” I asked.

“No,” she said, “- Master.”

“You may now draw back,” I said, “but you will remain in the vicinity, kneeling. You may be required later.”

“‘Required’,” she said, uncertainly.

“For further serving,” I said.

“Yes,” she said, “- Master.”

Pertinax seemed unable to take his eyes from her. I wondered what their relationship might be.

“May I serve Master paga?” inquired Cecily.

“Yes,” I said, and she served me paga, and well. I trusted Constantina was attentive.

How incredibly beautiful was the former Miss Virginia Cecily Jean Pym!

Then she withdrew, a bit, to kneel in the background, where, unobtrusively, she would be at hand, should she be needed, or wanted, or desired. The slave does not withdraw from the master’s presence without permission.

I finished the paga and set down the goblet.

“I thank you for your hospitality,” I said to Pertinax.

“It is nothing,” he said. “I hope you will stay the night.”

“The others, I gather,” I said, “have not yet arrived.”

“What others?” he said.

“I do not know,” I said.

“I do not understand,” he said.

“Perhaps we should talk,” I said to Pertinax.

“Remain as you are,” I said to Constantina, for it seemed she stirred, and would have risen to her feet.

She was not accustomed, it seemed, to obeying men. I found this odd, as she had a collar on her neck.

“By all means,” said Pertinax, uncertainly. “But talk of what?”

At that moment, far over the roof, high, outside the hut, far overhead, there was a thunderous noise. It was like a sudden, passing surf, a storm in the sky. It lasted no more than a part of an Ehn.

“Master?” said Cecily, startled.

Constantina seemed frightened.

Perhaps she had at one time seen tarns.

I did not leave my place.

“Migratory tarns,” said Pertinax.

“The tarn is not a migratory bird,” I said.

“Forest tarns,” he said.

“Tarns are of the mountains and the plains,” I said. “They do not frequent the forests. They cannot hunt in them, for the closeness of the trees.”

“Perhaps it was thunder,” he said.

“You may be unfamiliar with the sound,” I said, “but I am not. That was the passage of several tarns, perhaps a tarn cavalry.”

“No,” he said, “not a cavalry.”

“Not one disciplined, at any rate,” I said.

In a tarn cavalry the wing beats are synchronized, much as in the pace of marching men. Normally this is facilitated, unless surprise is intended, by the beating of a tarn drum, which sets the cadence. One of the glorious sights of Gor is the wheeling, the maneuvering and flight, of such cavalries in the sky, a lovely sight, in its way not unlike that of a fleet of lateen-rigged galleys abroad on gleaming Thassa, the sea.

“A very large band of mercenary brigands?” I suggested.

“They are not mounted,” said Pertinax.

“I do not understand,” I said.

“Do not speak,” snapped Constantina. “Be quiet, you fool!”

Pertinax subsided, and looked down.

I rose to my feet and went to my things, gathering in some few articles, and then returned to face Constantina, where she knelt. I took her by the hair and, as she cried out, twisted her about and threw her to her back, and knelt across her body. She squirmed, helpless, pinioned. She looked up at me, wildly, protestingly, frightened, as I thrust the wadding into her mouth, and then, turning her to her belly, secured it in place behind the back of her neck. I then, with binding fiber, as she lay on her belly, lashed her wrists together behind her back, tightly, and so served her ankles, as well, which I then bound, high, to her wrists. Such a tie is very unpleasant. I then lifted her in my arms, carried her outside, and threw her to the leaves, in the darkness, some feet from the hut entrance. I then returned to the hut, and resumed my place, cross-legged, across from Pertinax.

“I have no interest in killing you,” I said to Pertinax, “but I think we should talk.”

“By all means,” he said.

“I doubt that you are Gorean,” I said. “Certainly you are not of Port Kar, and you are not a forester. My slave and I were set down on the beach, doubtless to be met. You arrived, supposedly, as a matter of coincidence. I do not believe that. Whom do you serve?”

“Men,” he said.

“Priest-Kings? Kurii?” I asked. Certainly Priest-Kings knew the coordinates for the landing of the ship of Peisistratus, but, so, too, it seemed possible, did Kurii. Certainly the coordinates had been transmitted through Kurii to Peisistratus.

“I know nothing of Priest-Kings and Kurii,” said Pertinax. “Are they not mythical?”

“No,” I said.

“Men,” repeated Pertinax.

“Men who serve Priest-Kings, or Kurii?” I asked.

“Men,” he said. “I know nothing more.”

“I think you do not fear the intruders in the forest, those who come in ships,” I said. “I think you understand them.”

He said nothing.

“Explain to me the tarns,” I said.

“They are from Thentis,” he said, “most of them, some from elsewhere.”

Thentis is a high Gorean city, east and north of Ko-ro-ba. It is famed for its tarn flocks.