“I cannot say that,” I said.
“They have given him no name for humans?”
“No,” I said.
“I feared so,” said Lord Grendel. “They are most likely done with him.”
“Jane knows of him, saw him in the feasting hall, and such,” I said. “She calls him Tiresias.”
“Let us so refer to him then,” said Lord Grendel.
“It is an ancient name, from Earth, she told me. From stories one supposes, but from a city which did exist, Thebes, the name of a blind soothsayer.”
“Very well, then,” said Lord Grendel, “Tiresias.”
“How is it,” I asked, “that he is free, and you are encelled?”
“Betrayal,” said Grendel. Then he said, abruptly, “Groom me!”
I heard the outer gate opened. Lord Grendel gathered me into his arms, and I thrust my face into his fur, biting and nibbling.
I lifted my face from the fur, to look through the bars. The two guards were there.
“Groom well, little kajira,” came from the first translator, “and perhaps you will not be eaten.”
I thrust my face again into the fur.
I then heard from a second translator, apparently back a little farther than the first. “Enjoy the tiny, furtive, crawling things.”
“Crack them between your teeth,” came from the first translator.
“Are they not delicious?” came from the second translator.
Shortly thereafter I heard the gate closed.
“They are gone,” said Lord Grendel.
I was terrified.
“You did well,” said Lord Grendel. “If we were home, I would cast you a pastry.”
“Tell me of your doings, Master,” I said. “How is it that you are here?”
“We must inform one another,” he said. “As you know I wished to save Tiresias, as we shall call him, and, too, end his killings in Ar. Accordingly, we brought him to the house of Epicrates. I wished to return him to his fellows, but not leave the Lady Bina unattended in Ar. She was reluctant for a time to leave Ar, but then, rather surprisingly, she found the journey congenial.”
“She expects, somehow,” I said, “with the help of Kurii, to become the Ubara of all Gor, an idea undoubtedly suggested to her, implanted in her, in your absence from the domicile, by Tiresias, an idea congenial to her naive and unrealistic ambitions.”
“Actually,” said Lord Grendel, “it is not as unrealistic as you might think. If Kurii should win Gor, they might indeed make her the Ubara of the planet, but, of course, they would not do so. They would no longer need her. She then, with other humans, would be enslaved or eaten.”
“There are humans here,” I said.
“Mercenaries who know nothing, who do not look beyond their fee,” he said, “or fools who believe they would be enriched by a Kur victory, in a world to be shared.”
“You figure in this somehow,” I said.
“I was prominent in the revolution,” he said. “I am well-known and influential on one of the steel worlds, the steel world of Arcesilaus, Theocrat of the World, Twelfth Face of the Nameless One. That world might be important for supplies and support, and exerting a broader influence on other steel worlds.”
“You could be important, as an ally,” I said.
“Perhaps,” he said.
“They would expect,” I said, “to reach you through the Lady Bina.”
“I have not heard from her,” he said.
“They might expect you to pacify and humor her, to bow to her whims, to cooperate with the plans of these conspirators, to please her.”
“I fear more,” he said, “that they might harm her, if I should be reluctant to cooperate.”
“To avoid that,” I said, “you would do much.”
“Perhaps everything,” he said.
“You were betrayed,” I said.
“The wagon caravan, a small one of three wagons, was organized by the jobber, Astrinax. Tiresias and I, for a time, rode in the third wagon. Later, that we might be able to range more freely, and be less likely to be discovered, we left the wagons, but remained aware of their progress. In a sense I was their guard. Tiresias I kept with me most of the time. A tether would fasten us together. Many nights I made contact with Astrinax, during the night watch. In the mountains I discovered an outlaw band of nine men, and warned Astrinax. It turned out that he had hired, in Venna, two outlaws, in league with that band. In the night, at their camps, it was easy to overhear their speech. I warned Astrinax, and I think he warned two of his hires, Lykos, a mercenary, and Desmond, a Metal Worker.”
“I am not sure that Master Desmond is a Metal Worker,” I said.
“What then?” he asked.
“I do not know,” I said.
“I think,” I said, “they had an overweening confidence in your capacity to attack and destroy the band of the outlaw, Trachinos.”
“It seems, then,” he said, “they were in more danger than they realized.”
“I suspect they did not know that Tiresias was blind,” I said.
“At night,” he said, “it would not have been difficult, in the darkness, moving from body to body. In the day, without suitable weapons, it would have been more difficult, if not impossible.”
“I think they did not understand that,” I said. “I think they thought there were two of you, armed, whole, and dangerous.”
“I would, of course,” he said, “have done what I could.”
“An attack, it turns out, was to have been made, and was signaled, but it never took place. Men and Kurii from here, this facility, destroyed the outlaws.”
“I could not have prevented the attack,” said Lord Grendel. “I was taken into custody, and chained, shortly after returning Tiresias to his fellows.”
“He betrayed you,” I said, “you who had saved him.”
“Do not think ill of him,” said Lord Grendel. “He knew things I did not. I had no idea what was going on in the Voltai. He was thinking clearly. Worlds are at stake.”
“He is not being treated as a hero,” I said.
“He is now useless to them,” said Lord Grendel.
“He has done much for them,” I said.
“He will be put out for larls.”
“I do not understand.”
“It is the Kur way,” said Lord Grendel.
“I think one human, at least,” I said, “had some notion as to what might be afoot, somewhere, if not in the Voltai.”
“Some probably suspect,” said Lord Grendel.
“Master Desmond of Harfax,” I said.
“Interesting,” he said.
“He knew of your existence,” I said.
“Many did,” said Lord Grendel.
“He may have thought you implicated somehow, in something,” I said.
“And would spy upon me?”
“Or others, too,” I said.
“You have often heard, have you not,” he asked, “that curiosity is not becoming to a kajira?”
“Many times,” I said.
“Perhaps there should be another saying, too,” he said, “that curiosity in many places and at many times can be extremely dangerous, to anyone.”
