Mariners of Gor

“What had you forgotten?” asked the stranger.

“Lord Nishida and Tarl Cabot, the tarnsman,” said the captain, “have included with their greetings to you, a gift, as well.”

“I need no gift,” said the stranger, ruefully, bitterly.

“Do you refuse it?” asked the captain.

“I thought they were my friends,” said the stranger.

“Is it to be returned?” asked the captain.

“Certainly not,” I said.

“No,” said the stranger, wearily. “I am not so boorish. If they are not my friends, yet I am theirs. I would not so insult them.”

“I would like to sail with the tide, in the morning,” said the captain, “if our business can be finished here tonight.”

“The warehouse will remain open, until late,” I said. “And surely another day or two will not matter.”

“A day may matter,” said the captain. “One does not know.”

“You wish to sail as soon as possible?” I asked.

“As soon as is compatible with our business here,” said the captain.

“You hope to sail tomorrow?” I said.

“With the tide,” he said.

“Time is short, then,” I said.

“We will have it so,” said the captain.

“Accept then the gift, and have done with it,” I said to the stranger, “for the captain is much engaged.”

“I do not want it,” said the stranger.

“But you will accept it,” I said.

“Yes,” said the stranger, looking toward the tables.

“Where is the gift?” I asked.

“It,” said Captain Nakamura, pointing, “is in a back room, there, behind that door. We did not put it on the floor as it is a gift, and not for immediate sale.”

“But perhaps for later sale?” I said.

“Of course,” said the captain.

“I would return to the World’s End,” said the stranger. “That they, Lord Nishida and Tarl Cabot, whom I have served, and well I trust, in whose regard I putatively stand, would deny me that, is unconscionable.”

“They do not want you to die,” I said.

“They deny me the world, which they could easily grant, and send me instead, the sop of a gift,” he said, angrily.

“I do not think they meant you harm, nor insult,” I said. “Accept it, and then, if you wish, rid yourself of it, in anger.”

“I do not want it!” he said.

“They sent you greetings,” I said, “from the World’s End.”

“I do not want it!” he said.

“You may dispose of it, sell it,” I said.

“I do not want it!” he said.

“Very well,” I said. “Look upon it, and then leave it.”

“Follow me,” said Nakamura, captain of the River Dragon, who then began to move amongst the tables, toward the back of the room. In a moment, he had reached the door he had earlier indicated, opened it, and stood beside it, not entering.

“Captain, noble captain,” called Demetrion, harbor master in Brundisium, from several yards away, lifting his hand. “Your mark is required.”

“Will you excuse me?” said Captain Nakamura to the stranger and me, and, after bowing, went to join Demetrion.

Many Goreans, particularly of the lower castes, and some of the Warriors, a high caste, cannot read. Literacy is accepted in the lower castes, but not encouraged. There are Peasants who have never seen a written word. Some Warriors take pride in their inability to read, regarding that skill as unworthy of them, as being more appropriate to record keepers, tradesmen, clerks, and such, and some who can read take pains to conceal the fact. Swords, not words, rule cities, it is said. And some Goreans feel that reading is appropriate only for the less successful, those too poor to have their reading done for them, their letters written for them, and such. Slaves, unless formerly of high caste, are often illiterate. And barbarian slaves are seldom taught to read. This produces the anomaly that many barbarian slaves, who are generally of high intelligence, will be literate in one or more of the barbarian languages, but illiterate in Gorean. Indeed, they are often kept so, deliberately, that they may be all the more helpless, as slaves, and know themselves all the better as mere slaves. Needless to say, all members of my caste, even from childhood, are taught to read. How can one be fully human without the dignity, glory, and power of the written word? Is it not to the world what memory is to the individual? By its means words spoken long ago and faraway may once more be heard. By the magic of such marks, the sorcery of small signs, we converse with those we have never met, touch dreams we could not otherwise share, at a glance rekindle flames which first burned in distant hearts. How else might one hear the tones of distant trumpets, the tramp of vanished armies, ford rivers where now lies cracked earth, witness distant sunsets, and stand wondering on the shores of vanished seas? Pani warriors, those of the high Pani, so to speak, I learn from the stranger, are almost all literate. It is not regarded as demeaning for them. Indeed, some take great pleasure in reading, as others might in music, or conversation. Indeed, it is not unusual for a Pani warrior to compose songs, and poetry.

Demetrion had spoken of Captain Nakamura’s “mark,” as though he might have been illiterate. This misunderstanding was based on the fact that the Pani transcribe their Gorean in their own way, with their own characters, as do many in the Tahari region. There is a single Gorean language, but it may be transcribed in different ways. A consequence of this is that two individuals might converse easily, while, at the same time, finding one another’s written discourse unintelligible.

As the captain had indicated the door, and opened it, I took it that one was free to enter the room. Curious, I did so.

The room was perhaps some twenty-feet square, with a smooth flooring of dark, polished wood. The walls were white. Two narrow, barred windows, set some eight feet from the floor, admitted light, rather as the windows in the general trading area.

There was only one object in the room.

I turned about, toward the door, for I had expected the stranger to be behind me, but I did not see him.

I went to the door, and looked out, into the general area. He was a few feet away, his back turned.

When I had entered the room, the object had stirred, as it could, aware that the door had been opened, and that someone had entered the room.

“Ho!” I called to the stranger, from the door.

He did not turn, though he had doubtless heard me.

I turned back, to the room.

I had seldom seen a woman tied more pathetically, or helplessly. The Pani, I gathered, well knew how to bind a female. I wondered if, in some sense, she could be important. There was not the least possibility of her escaping. She would remain as she was, wholly helpless, at the mercy of any who might find her. I moved the long Pani tunic up, on her left side, to the hip. I saw then that I was mistaken; she was not important. She was well marked, with the kef. She was then only a slave. I replaced the tunic so that, as before, the hem was across her ankles. I myself liked a shorter tunic on a slave, as the legs and thighs of a chattel are exciting. Also, the shorter tunic helps her to better understand that she is a slave.

I regarded Callias’ gift.

The Pani had tied her kneeling, and bent tightly over. Her head was down, to the floor, and was held in place, in slave humility, by a short, taut cord which ran from her collar back, under her body, to her small, crossed, thonged ankles. In this way any pressure is at the back of the neck, away from the throat. Her small wrists were also crossed, and thonged together behind her back. She was, thus, cruelly and tightly bent over, a small, compact, nicely curved, well-tethered, attractive bundle of slave meat. She had also been blindfolded and gagged.