Mariners of Gor

Those flames would bring her periodically to a man’s feet.

Do they not put her in bondage more than her brand, her collar, and chains?

I opened the door, and watched her go down the balcony, and descend the stairs, leading to the street.

I thought of her, in her way, as being also of the Scribes, though, in her world, I gather that that caste is unknown, despite the fact that it is one of the five high castes. I had spoken to her for many Ahn, telling her of Gor, for what is a paga girl likely to learn of Gor, serving paga, serving pleasure, in an alcove? And she, in her turn, often nude at the slave ring, or before me, stripped, kneeling, hands braceleted behind her, had told me much of her world. It seemed to me a complex, but sorry world, one crowded and polluted, one of noise, fumes, and smoke, of pushing and shoving, one of haste with few places to go, or worth going, one without much love, and one, clearly, without Home Stones, if one can conceive of such a world. Too, it seems those of her world, incredibly, do not much care for their own world. Are they not like animals who would soil their own nest, like madmen who would poison their own air and water? Given a garden of loveliness, would they not burn it, and turn it to ash?

She had now disappeared down the stairwell, on the way to the market.

How beautiful she was!

And how fetching she was, barefoot, in the brief, ragged tunic of blue rep-cloth.

She had clutched the coins in her hand.

Had she been natively Gorean she would probably have carried them in her mouth.

When the fellows in the market saw the color of the tunic they would guess, I supposed, and correctly, that she was the property of a Scribe.

Chapter Thirty-Five

The Wharfing of an Unusual Ship

From the bulwarks of the large, unusual ship men strangely clad threw down ropes to docksmen, who fastened them to mooring cleats.

The sea end of the pier had now been cleared by guardsmen, that the ship might be attended to, but the land end of the pier, and the adjacent waterfront, even to the warehouses, and the streets leading up to the city, were still swarming with people, men, and women, and boys.

Brundisium is one of the world’s largest, busiest ports, with one of the finest harbors on the planet, host to a hundred traffics, headquarters of a hundred Merchant houses, but never, until now, had there been seen such a ship.

“Yes,” had said the stranger. “I have seen that ship! It is, or was, a ship of the shogun, Lord Temmu!”

“Come from the World’s End?” I said.

“Yes!” he said, pressing forward.

“Stop!” said a guardsman. “Go back!”

A lowered spear barred our way, and that of others.

“Wait!” I cautioned the stranger.

We then stood back, in the crowd.

“Make way, make way!” called a herald.

Making their way to the pier were members of the port’s administration. I knew several, from my work in the harbor office, in the registry.

How would one record the arrival of this ship, I wondered. What would be its registry, its port of origin, who would be its master, what would be its business, its cargo?

We waited behind the line of guardsmen, while the port’s delegates approached the ship.

A gate in the bulwarks of the ship swung back, and was fastened open. Through this opening, several men began to thrust forth, foot by foot, a loading plank. They were short, sturdy men. They were barefoot. They wore short, hitched-up robes, with short sleeves.

“They are from Schendi,” said someone near us.

“Too light,” said another.

“See the eyes!” said a man.

“Tuchuks,” said a man. “I saw one once.”

“Yes!” said a fellow.

I looked to the stranger.

“Pani,” he said.

“Do they speak the language?” I asked.

“Yes,” said the stranger.

I recalled that last night the stranger had alluded to this matter. It had had to do with the will of Priest- Kings.

“What is such a ship doing here, in Brundisium?” I asked the stranger.

“I do not know,” he said.

“Should you not, at the first opportunity,” I said, “seek to make contact with the ship?”

“No,” he said.

I recalled the two Assassins, of yesterday evening.

“It is that ship,” said he, “which is, or was, of the much-diminished navy of Lord Temmu, but the war was going badly. The fleet of Lord Yamada was approaching the cove, when the great ship slipped away.”

“You think,” I said, “it may be a prize, taken by the ships of Lord Yamada’s admiral?”

“I think it unlikely,” he said, “quite improbable, but, in any event, caution is advised.”

“Why unlikely, why improbable?” I asked.

“It was not in the cove when the fleet of Lord Yamada made its appearance,” he said.

“It could have been overtaken and seized elsewhere,” I said.

“That is possible,” he said. “But one wonders why Lord Yamada, rich with resources, with many ashigaru, with many ships, with many villages and rice fields, with his war well in hand, on the brink of victory, would send a single ship to Brundisium, or even, say, to Kasra or Telnus.”

“It is then likely,” I said, “that it is still of the forces of Lord Temmu.”

“Almost certainly,” said the stranger. “But let us see how matters unfold.”

“What are you talking about?” asked a fellow.

“Of far and strange things,” said the stranger.

“Pani, I gather,” I said, “have been in Brundisium before.”

“I have gathered so,” said the stranger, “long ago, by the intervention of Priest-Kings.”

“For what reason?” I asked.

“To hire men, to buy women,” he said. “To establish camps, to secure timber, to obtain tarns, to prepare a resistance, to ready themselves to wage a war anew.”

“Why would they come again?” I asked.

“I do not know,” said the stranger.

“Look,” said a fellow pointing. “It is Demetrion!”

“Who is Demetrion?” asked the stranger.

“He is the harbor master,” I said.

Demetrion had taken time to don his formal robes, lengthy and abundant, of white and yellow. He was approaching the lowered gangplank, one end resting on the pier, the other fastened, roped, to the bulwarks, on each side of the opened gate. With Demetrion were his aides, also of the Merchants, and two Scribes, one of which was Phillip, my superior in the registry.

The guardsmen had rather followed Demetrion’s party, for which, I gathered, they had been waiting, and this permitted the stranger and myself, and the crowd, generally, to proceed several yards further down the pier. The guardsmen did, however, maintain an open space about the gangway.

Demetrion paused at the foot of the gangway and lifted his hand in greeting. “Tal,” he said.