“What do you think is meant by that?” I asked.
“It is poetry, is it not?” he asked.
“I suspect,” I said, “it is a poetry which speaks of differences, say that between the living and the dead. One, I suppose, must sense things, infer things, expect things.”
Sometimes one understands things without understanding how one understands them.
How does one know that one man who smiles is a friend and another is an enemy? Perhaps one sees what cannot be seen.
“Much makes sense to me,” said Pertinax, “the nature of the ground, the position of the sun, day and night, the season of the year, but much seems mysticism.”
“There are probably mysticisms and mysticisms,” I said. “Some, I suspect, speak of the world.”
“One should not die with a weapon undrawn,” said Pertinax.
“Do not be taken by surprise,” I suggested.
“One should pay attention to little things,” said Pertinax.
“They can be important,” I said.
“From one thing learn ten thousand things,” he said.
“Things lead to one another,” I suggested. “They are bound together.”
“One who has faced death at the point of a sword has an elevated understanding,” said Pertinax.
“I think that is true,” I said. “At least one is different, and one has a better sense of life. For such a one the world is then other than it was.”
“Step by step walk the thousand-mile road,” he said.
“Be patient,” I suggested. “Do not give up. Excellence is not easily achieved.”
“Are there such things in the codes?” asked Pertinax.
“There are many things in the codes,” I said, “similar, and different. Much of this, I think, is wisdom, doubtless deriving from one teacher or another, in one place or another, perhaps over centuries.”
“There are many things,” said Pertinax, “many, many things.”
“Few will understand them all,” I said. “Be humble, learn what you can.”
“The spirit of fire is fierce,” smiled Pertinax, “whether it is large or small, and the spirit is like fire, and can be large or small.”
“Master Nodachi, I suspect,” I said, “has a large spirit, and, unseen, it burns fiercely.”
“I am learning swords,” he said.
“And what is the purpose of the sword?” I asked.
“It is to kill,” he said.
“Yes,” I said.
There was something much like that in the codes. The purpose of the sword is not to fence, not to match blades, and not to exhibit skill, nor is its purpose to reach the enemy, nor even to cut him. Its purpose is to kill him.
He shuddered.
“Are you strong enough for that?” I asked.
“I do not know,” he said.
Some who excelled in the
“Seek to learn more,” I said.
“If I would live?” he asked.
“Yes,” I said.
Chapter Sixteen
“One-strap!” I called, and Ichiro, who was behind and on my right, blew the blast on the war horn, and two hundred tarns, with riders, ascended, as one, the forest far below, Tarncamp a clearing below in the forest.
There are six strap positions on the common tarn harness. On the tarn’s collar there are six rings, to which straps are attached, which straps ascend to the saddle, which, too, has six rings, corresponding to the collar rings. The six saddle rings are arranged on a vertical ring. The one-ring is at the top of the main saddle ring, and the four- ring is at the bottom. The two-ring and three-ring are on the right side of the main saddle ring, and the four-ring and five-ring are on the left side of the main saddle ring. Given the correspondences, drawing on the one-strap exerts pressure at the bottom of the tarn’s throat, to which pressure it responds by ascent, and drawing on the four-ring exerts pressure on the ring at the back of the tarn’s neck, to which pressure it responds by descent. Similarly, it may wheel to the high right and the low right, and to the high left and low left, by drawing on the appropriate straps. If one wishes a lateral motion to the right one draws on both the two and three straps at the same time, and if one wishes a lateral motion to the left one draws on the four and five straps simultaneously. Similar adjustments may be made by drawing on the one and two straps, on the three and four straps, and so on, about the ring. A simple knot in each strap prevents it from slipping back through one of the saddle rings.
“Three-strap,” I called, and Ichiro blew the signal, and the flock turned downward and to the right.
“Rings free!” I called to Ichiro, and he blew the appropriate blast, and the flock leveled out in its flight, and continued on the path on which it had been set.
Of great assistance in such matters is the natural flocking behavior of tarns, which consists of three genetically coded behaviors, two of which deal with spatiality and one with velocity. A tarn flock will tend to cohere, to stay together, and it will also maintain a bird-to-bird distance. These spatial habituations are then linked with a tendency to match velocity. In this fashion a flock of birds, even in the wild, will engage effortlessly in what appear to be astonishingly swift and complex maneuvers.
“Five-strap!” I called. “Rings free!” The horn gave forth this command, and the flock descended to the left and leveled in its flight.
I personally preferred solitary tarnflight, and I supposed most tarnsmen would, as there is a wild sense of freedom on tarnback, sometimes almost of exaltation, as one seems one with the bird. One is muchly alive. One becomes almost another form of life, one with the bird, and one with the wind, the clouds, and sky. I suspect this is something which is missed in most mechanistic flight, but was probably hinted at, or suggested, by the small, responsive, single-engine aircraft which were used, say, in the first quarter of the twentieth century on Earth.
To my left was Tajima.
He was armed, as the others, with the small bow, and broad quivers on each side of the saddle. Too, mounted there, were six Anangan darts, three on each side. In the side-slung saddle boot, on the right, horizontal with the flight, was the black, temwood lance. On the left, at hand, was the small, edged buckler, suitable for turning a spear thrust. Behind the saddle, folded, was the weighted net.
I communicated with Ichiro by hand signals as well as voice, and I indicated that we were now to return to Tarncamp, and that bows were to be freed. This was conveyed by notes to our tarnsmen. Dozens of targets had been set up in the training area. On the ground, in extensive training, I had practiced the men with their weapons, the arrow, the dart, the lance, the edged buckler, the net.
I thought we were now no more than an Ehn or two from Tarncamp.
The cavalry was not, of course, a simple flock, or pride. The two hundred riders might be thought of, I suppose, as the cavalry, or group, to take an analogy. The group then was divided into, say, two “centuries,” of one hundred riders each, each century into five squadrons, so to speak, of twenty riders each, each squadron into, say, two flights, of ten riders each, and each flight into two “prides,” of five riders each. There were in short, then, in the group as a whole, two centuries, ten squadrons, twenty flights, and forty prides. As is often the case there is no really satisfactory correspondences between certain Gorean terms and English. I have, on the whole, taken roughly equivalent expressions. One might think, if one wishes, of the cavalry, then the hundreds, then the twenties, then the tens, and then the fives. In any event these arrangements allowed for considerable differentiation and flexibility, in attack, in reconnaissance, in foraging, and so on. I was captain, or high captain, and each subdivision had its clearly understood leader, down to the smallest units, which I have referred to, for convenience, as “prides.” Groups
