Mariners of Gor

hands fastened above her head, five strands of rope about her belly, pulling her back, tightly, against the wood. A free man had found her displeasing. She would doubtless soon learn to be more pleasing. It is what she is for.

On the deck, during the day, the weather was warm enough, certainly. To our pleasure, the slaves had been returned to their tunics. It is extremely pleasant to see a barefoot slave, in a tunic or less. On the platform, however, within the ring, it can be quite chilly, even when it is warm below. And now, at night, it was indeed unpleasant. Within my cloak I shivered. Should the rain continue, the cloak would be soaked. Miserable, too, I thought, would be the small thing bound below. Her head was down. The tiny tunic, of rep cloth, clung about her. She would learn to be a better slave.

As I suppose I have made clear, I am not by caste of the Mariners. It is one thing to draw an oar, and do one thing or another about a ship, even to be of its fighting complement, and quite another to read the weather, and water, and the stars, to plot courses, to keep a steady helm in a hard sea, to manage lines and rigging, and such. There were, of course, things I could do, such as keep a high watch, as I was now doing. The platform and ring, and each mast had such an arrangement, are near the summit of the mast, and encircle it, allowing the lookout to move about the mast. In this fashion, if it desired, there may be more than one lookout on each platform, within each ring. To be sure, usually only one ring and platform was manned, and that by a single lookout, commonly, as tonight, that of the foremast. It is different, of course, if one is in dangerous waters, fears an attack, or such.

I clung to the ring, which was cold, and wet, that I might be steadied. The motion of the ship, whether its side to side rolling, or yaw, or its plunging, the lifting and falling of the bow, its pitch, is exaggerated at the height of the mast. It takes time for one of the land, say, an infantryman like myself, to accustom himself to the sea, but I had managed this well enough, quickly enough, after two or three days in the Metioche, but this had little prepared me for the high watch here, with the distance and violence of the mast’s motion. Such, for a time, can disconcert and sicken even a seasoned mariner. Perhaps that is why the high watches are usually restricted to selected crewmen, who manage the watch regularly. I was now, with several others, frequently assigned such a watch. In the beginning it is well not to look down, or at the water, to the side. It helps to keep one’s view away from the ship, and to the horizon, which, in any event, is where it should be, anyway. After two or three days of the high watch one’s body, one’s belly, one’s sense of balance, and such, are likely to adjust to the motion. Some adapt more quickly than others, of course, and it is from these that the high watches are usually drawn. Some men, interestingly, find themselves unable, apparently indefinitely, or, at least, within a reasonable time, to make the pertinent accommodations. To be sure, in fair weather a high watch is not all that different from a deck watch, or a stem- or stern-castle watch. After the first few days I was no longer bothered by the high watch, and, given a decency of weather, had begun to enjoy it. You are away from things, and seem closer to the wind, the clouds, and sunlight, and, all about, for pasangs, stretches the vast, encompassing ambiguity of Thassa, subtle and minacious, welcoming and threatening, benignant and perilous, restless, sparkling, and dangerous, green, vast, intriguing, beckoning Thassa. It is easy to see how she calls to men, she is so alluring and beautiful, and it is easy, as well, to see how, with her might and whims, her moods and power, she may inspire fear in the stoutest of hearts. Be warned, for the wine of Thassa is a heady wine. She may send you gentle winds and shelter you in her great arms, bearing you up, or should she please, break you and draw you down, destroying you, to mysterious, unsounded deeps. In her cups you may find many things, the unalienable riches of moonlight on water, her whispering in long nights, against the hull, her unforgettable glory in the morning, the brightness of her noontide, the transformations of her sunset and dusk, her access to far shores, the sublime darkness of her anger, the lashing and howling of her winds, the force and authority of her waves, like pitching mountains. She is the love of the Caste of Mariners. She is a heady wine. Her name is Thassa.

The wind changed.

The rain became heavier.

The glass of the Builders was on its strap, across my chest. As most of the lookouts, I had fastened a safety rope about my waist. One can lose one’s footing, particularly in heavy weather, or when the platform is iced, and slip between the platform and the ring, which is waist high.

I felt the first rattle of hail.

We had had two hail storms of great severity when farther north, storms such as those which, in the Barrens, north and east of the Voltai, sometimes decimate flocks of migrating birds, striking them from the sky, flocks which, obedient to their hereditary imperatives, refuse to land and seek shelter. Sails had been quickly reefed, lest, by a rare, larger stone, they might be cut. Hundreds of tiny impressions marked the deck. In places a larger stone had splintered a plank, or gouged a railing. Some stones were the size of a man’s fist. All hands had soon been ordered below deck. The tarns had been much agitated by the pounding on the deck above them. There was little to fear now, however, as storms of that severity seldom, if ever, occur at this latitude. Still I backed against the mast, and drew the hood of my cloak over my head.

The hail picked up a little.

It was not a serious hail, but it would keep the deck largely untenanted.

I now suspect that had much to do with what occurred.

I looked back, below, to see the slave, punishment-bound, at the second mast. Her feet were bare, as is common with a slave in good weather. Free women feel that a slave, as she is an animal, should not be shod, no more than a verr or kaiila, but such things are, of course, up to the master. Some slaves, high slaves, may have sandals, even slippers, set with precious stones, but a free woman is likely to order them to remove such presumptuous footwear in their presence, and sometimes to bring them to them, dangling from their mouths, humbly, head down, on all fours, rather as a pet sleen or slave might bring footwear to her master. Little love is lost between the free woman and the slave. Interestingly, the female slave is honored to bring footwear in her teeth, head down, humbly, on all fours, to her master, as the animal she knows herself to be. “I am yours, your beast, Master. May I be found pleasing.” She is then likely to kiss his feet, place them carefully within the sandals, and tie them for him, following which she is likely to again kiss his feet, back a bit away, and then kneel before him, head down. She is his slave. He is her master. It is quite different, of course, before another woman. What right has one woman, only herself a woman, to so shame, crush, and mortify another woman? This is not the natural relationship of a woman to a man, but a cruelly humiliating, unjustified, unnatural travesty of a biologically ordained rightness. Are they not both females, both fittingly the possessions of men, merely that one is collared and one not? Why does the free woman so hate the slave? Does she envy the trembling slave that lovely band fastened about her throat, proclaiming her beauty and desirability? Does she envy her her happiness, her contentment, her fulfillment, her master? “Would you be so different from me, proud mistress,” might wonder the slave, “were you tunicked, as I, and your neck encircled, as mine, in a similar claiming device?”

The deck was wet, and cold.

Below, her hair was dark, and long, and, now wet, was much about her face. Sometimes she had lifted her head, her face white and rain-streaked, to look up at me, but I had paid her little attention, and she would soon put her head down, again. Her figure, always of interest, had been improved, I thought, since the beginning of the voyage. This had to do with the regimes of diet and exercise imposed upon her. One may do much what one wants with animals, to improve them. As her vitality and health improved she, well-collared, now a mere pleasure animal, like her sisters, would twist ever more helplessly in her bonds. Slavery much increases the sexual appetites and needs of a female, until they can become almost unbearable.

I looked about, though with the clouds, the darkness, the rain, the spattering of hail, there was not much to see.

The deck was now muchly deserted, given the darkness and weather, save for the helmsman, the stem- castle watch, the slave, and two men maintaining the deck watch. The first deck watch had been relieved; the second was now on duty. I would later learn its nature.

I had come to enjoy, and look forward, to the high watches. Solitude on a ship is rare, and the high watch afforded one of the few opportunities on a ship, say, a round ship, and certainly on the ship of Tersites, to be alone. And, when one is alone, one thinks. It was clear to me that Seremides, serving in the retinue of Lord Okimoto, as a bodyguard, viewed me as a threat, as I could recognize him from Ar. Some of those closest to him, and, I feared, in desperate league with him, such as Tyrtaios, in the service of Lord Nishida, might know him only as a master swordsman, Rutilius of Ar. I did not know. I would later learn of five originally suspect men, not of the Pani, armsmen, originally with Lord Nishida, of which number Tyrtaios was but one, the others being Quintus, Telarion, Fabius, and Lykourgos. Two, however, Quintus and Lykourgos, had somehow perished in the great forest, during the march from Tarncamp to the Alexandra. I had no reason to believe, however, that this had anything to do with