“Do you think the odor is important?” he asked.
“I do not know,” I said. “It might, as you suggest, be relevant to the authenticity of the token.”
“You took its scent,” he said.
I shrugged. “The odor was odd,” I said. “I was curious.”
“It meant nothing to you?”
“Little or nothing,” I said.
“I speculate,” he said, “you know as little of this as I.”
“I fear so,” I said. Certainly I had no idea what might have been the message of the string.
Then the helmsman in the longboat called out, “Hurry!” He was looking about. I looked out, across the water. A narrow spume of smoke rose from the round ship, near its bow. This was, I supposed, a signal to return to the ship. Such signals are silent, and in waters where it might be wise to be wary, drums or horns would not be used. At night, dark lanterns, shuttered and unshuttered, may be used. Other devices, more common on ships of war, in similar situations, are flags and banners. Needless to say there are codes involved, which may be changed when deemed appropriate.
Sullius Maximus backed away a step or two, looked briefly back, to the round ship, some hundred yards offshore. It had begun now to come about, its bow moving, turning, toward the horizon.
“It is dangerous here,” he said. “I must hasten.”
“Hurry,” called the fellow at the tiller, again. The two oarsmen turned the longboat toward the round ship.
“How, how dangerous?” I asked.
Certainly he had two crossbowmen at his back. And the beach was open several yards behind me. He was beyond a cast of the spear. This was a remote area. To be sure, he was well within the purview of a longbow.
“Attend,” said he, “fellow partisan of the plans of Priest-Kings, attend the commands of the Sardar!”
“What is your sudden concern?” I asked.
I saw no new sail on the horizon.
Something, of course, might have been seen from the height of the permanent mast of the round ship. A lookout is often posted there, with a Builder’s glass. He stands on a small platform, and is usually roped to the mast, or has his place within a chest-high ring of metal. The masts of the common Gorean warship are commonly lowered before entering battle. This makes the ship more amenable to her oars and less vulnerable to flaming missiles, which might ignite a sail on its long, sloping yard.
I wondered that Sullius Maximus had not been conveyed hither in a long ship. Surely Tyros has one of the most formidable fleets on Thassa.
Perhaps this had little to do with Tyros?
Perhaps a round ship would raise less suspicion?
Perhaps this was the very ship on which the agent of Priest-Kings might have had his passage?
“I speak in the name of Priest-Kings,” said Sullius Maximus, swiftly, as though by rote. “You are to attend me intently, and are to obey with perfection.”
“I am a free man,” I reminded him.
“Hear the will of Priest-Kings!” he said.
And so I prepared to hear the will of Kurii.
“You are to enter the forest,” said Sullius Maximus, “and seek out a forester, by name, Pertinax. The hut is nearby. You will know him by name, and by his possession, a blond-haired, blue-eyed slave. She is barbarian. She has tiny bits of metal in two of her teeth, and a tiny brand on her upper left arm. Her name is Constantina. They are to conduct you within the forest, to a rendezvous with a mariner from west of Tyros and Cos.”
That interested me, for few ships voyaged to the west of those maritime ubarates. There were, of course, some islands beyond Tyros and Cos, some smaller islands, spoken of, commonly, as the Farther Islands. I supposed, thus, that the “mariner,” if he were a mariner, must be from one of the Farther Islands. I was personally unaware of any who had sailed beyond those islands, and returned.
What Sullius Maximus had referred to as a brand on the upper left arm of Constantina was doubtless a vaccination mark. Few, if any, of the maladies which immunization was designed to prevent on Earth existed on Gor. It was natural for Goreans, hence, to suppose that this form of scarring was a brand, a deliberately inflicted mark, though not necessarily one indicative of bondage. Ritual scarring was not unknown on Gor, for example amongst certain of the Wagon Peoples of the southern plains, certain tribes south and east of Schendi, in the vicinity of the Ua, and so on. The girls were, of course, barbarians. Some Goreans supposed the tiny marks were “selection marks,” marks identifying choice females, suitable for eventual enslavement. This misunderstanding was presumably fostered by the fact that the great majority of Earth females brought to Gor were, in their variety of ways, choice merchandise or, to speak vulgarly, superb “block meat.”
“You are to take your orders from this person, or his superiors,” said Sullius Maximus.
“I do not understand what is going on here,” I said.
“Your duties will be explained to you,” said Sullius Maximus.
“What is the name of this ‘mariner’?” I asked.
“Nishida,” he said. “Lord Nishida.”
“Hurry! Hurry!” called the fellow at the tiller of the longboat.
Sullius Maximus then turned about, and hurried toward the shore.
He waded into the surf and, when he had boarded the small craft, the two fellows with crossbows followed him, and, in moments, their weapons stowed, they, and the other two oarsmen, were propelling the longboat toward the round ship. The fellow at the tiller had a steady hand, and the longboat was soon aside the round ship, and had been hoisted over the gunwales. At the same time the lateen sail was unfurled from its yard, and, swelling, took the wind, and the ship, like a stately bird, was aflight.
Sullius Maximus would have had no way of knowing that I had already made the acquaintance of Pertinax and Lady Constantina, nor in any event would this have much mattered. The principal point of his contact with me, I supposed, was to convince me that I had now kept my appointment with the agent of Priest-Kings, and had thereby received my instructions from the Sardar. I would be thus relieved of any inclination to await that contact, my possible suspicions having been thusly allayed. Presumably, too, assuming I was compliant to the will of Priest- Kings, I would now naively prosecute the machinations of Kurii, confident that it was in the cause of Priest-Kings that I labored.
What I had learned from Pertinax and Lady Constantina, of course, was rather similar to that which I had learned from Sullius Maximus, which was only to be expected, as they, though perhaps unbeknownst to one another, were in league. From Pertinax I had gathered the rendezvous in the forest might take place tomorrow, or soon thereafter. From Sullius Maximus, I had gathered that it was to take place with a “mariner” called Nishida. That did not sound to me like a Gorean name. Similarly, he had spoken of “Lord Nishida,” which suggested that the individual, if a mariner, at all, was not likely to be a common mariner. From Lady Constantina I had learned that a ship was somehow involved, and tarns. She had also suggested that I would be subject to a hold of some sort, presumably something that would guarantee my fidelity to the orders received. This hold, I had gathered, had something to do with a woman. I understood little of this.
Once this rendezvous had taken place it seemed to me unlikely that the Kurii would have further use for Lady Constantina. I rather doubted that she would be given to Pertinax, as he seemed still much of Earth. He did not seem to me a master. Naturally it would be appropriate to give a woman, particularly a good-looking woman, which Constantina was, only to a master.
They know what to do with such women.
I decided to return to the hut of Pertinax.
I supposed he would still be there, even if Lady Constantina would have urged flight. Too, I was sure Cecily would be there, as well. She had not been given permission to leave the area, nor did I think, in fact, she would wish to do so. Once, before, on a Steel World, she had fled. She had, of course, eventually, easily enough, a half- naked slave, branded and collared, been recovered. I had punished the Earth girl well for her indiscretion. She was now, as the saying is, more familiar with her collar. Now, the very thought of attempting to escape, or of even failing to be pleasing, and fully so, would fill her with terror.
Constantina, I had now discovered, was, as I had hitherto suspected, a free woman. I did not think she would inform Pertinax that I now knew her secret. It was, of course, one to which he would be privy. It would be
