course, will be well aware of the contrast between the scantiness of their garmenture and the nature of the outside world.
I stood there, back from the portal, and listened to the chatting of the guards, mostly dealing with racing tharlarion and the price of women in Venna, and the small noises of utensils.
In the place of cells, where I had first encountered Grendel in the Cave, I had learned something of the politics of worlds. Those Kurii of the Cave, stubborn refugees of a putatively lost cause, impenitent and undissuaded, I had gathered, hoped to enleague themselves with one or more of the remote steel worlds, with the end in view of a conquest of Gor, and, perhaps eventually, if wished, of Earth. It was thought that Grendel, who stood high on one of these steel worlds, and was a hero of a recent revolution, might further this project. Doing so, of course, would be to repudiate the ends and principles for which he had earlier fought, and to ally himself with the very forces which had sought to destroy him and his party. The Grendel I had thought I had known, of matchless courage, integrity, and honor, would rather have perished uncomplainingly beneath the knives and irons of his enemies. I had feared only that he might be torn between the clear demands of honor and his troubling, profound solicitude for a single human female, the naive, unrealistic, ambitious, frivolous, charming Lady Bina. This solicitude was hard to understand, as he was a mere beast, and she was clearly human. If he had been human, or fully human, which he was not, the dilemma might, at least in principle, have been comprehensible. As it was, it made no sense. If it were not absurd, so out of the question, biologically, and such, one might have thought some sort of infatuation, even love, was involved. Certainly human history was filled with men who had betrayed a family, a party, a state, friends, allies, principles, honor, themselves, for the sake of an affair, a dalliance, a smile, a kiss. Surely the sparkling eyes of a free woman, and the hint of lips beneath a veil, had brought more than one general to defeat, more than one Ubar to ruin. It is said the man conquers with a sword, the woman with a kiss. How different from the slave who may be merely whipped and bought.
My fears in this matter had been twofold; first, that the Lady Bina, having succumbed to the blandishments of Kurii, might prevail upon Grendel to join their party, and, second, she being in their power, he might, to procure her comfort and safety, perform whatever tasks they might ask of him. I recalled his fear that she might be harmed if he refused to cooperate. To avoid that, I had speculated that he might do much. “Perhaps everything,” he had said.
What I had failed to anticipate were his revelations to me prior to our entry into the so-called Audience Chamber of Agamemnon, spoken of as the “Theocrat of the World,” and the “Eleventh Face of the Nameless One.” There I had understood, for the first time, that he had no more respect for, or feeling for, the Lady Bina than the other Kurii. She had been for them no more than a piece in their games, of value only for her possible effect on Grendel, but now, given his lack of concern for her, even his contempt for her, she was no longer even that. His motivations, made clear to me, were wealth and power. How clever he was! His initial reluctance to further their cause, as one might see now, had been no more than a ruse to raise the stakes, presumably to the governorship of a world. I had been wrong about Grendel. I saw him now as he was, ruthless, cruel, treacherous, ambitious, and greedy. Part Kur, he was perhaps more than Kur, adding to the horror of one species the worst of another.
“One comes!” called the first guard, looking about, pointing toward the trail outside the portal.
Each seized his spear.
“Beware,” said the second guard. “Do not challenge. See! It is a golden chain!”
Only four in the Cave wore the golden chain, Lucius, putatively first in the Cave, Timarchos, Lysymachos, and, of late, some days ago, Grendel.
The guards uneasily drew back their spears, and stepped aside.
I knew the entering beast. For me to effect this recognition it was not necessary for me to note a golden chain, nor hear him speak. I could recognize him easily, from Ar, from the domicile of Epicrates, from the place of cells, from the audience chamber. After weeks in the Cave, where Kurii were frequently encountered, I could also easily note the subtle difference about the eyes, and, of course, if one looked, that of the appendages, for the hands and feet of the entering beast were five-digited, not six-digited. These differences would have been instantaneously obvious to a Kur, but I am sure that many humans would have seen little or no difference between Grendel and a purely bred, or full-blooded, Kur. There would also, of course, if the beast were to speak, be a difference in the sounds uttered. They were neither purely human nor purely Kur. A human first encountering Grendel’s Gorean might find it difficult to understand but, after a short while, with certain adjustments, it was easily intelligible. I gathered that his Kur was closer to Kur, than his Gorean to Gorean. In any event, however it might seem to a Kur, I saw little difference between the Kur of Grendel and that of his Kur fellows with whom he readily and frequently conversed.
Grendel growled as he passed the guards, and they drew back a bit more. They would have been more at ease had they kept their spears at the ready, drawn back, in the two-handed thrusting position.
He had entered from the outside. I recalled that he had told me, before the meeting in the audience chamber, that he had been given his freedom, and might even leave the Cave if he wished. His natural pelting would protect him from the weather. I envied him his capacity to come and go as he might please. Aside from the question of garmenture, a kajira who left the Cave might be accounted a fugitive, and hunted down, as such. Mina, as I recalled, was to have been fed alive to lesser Kurii until Trachinos, pleased with her lineaments, had purchased her.
When Grendel turned to me, I dropped to my knees, and lowered my head, fearing to look into the eyes of such a monster. I remembered a glimpse of the golden chain swinging against that large, dark chest, the translator dangling from it, and then he had passed.
A bit later, the first guard said, “Kajira.”
I then gathered up the tray, utensils, goblets, and the emptied bottle of ka-la-na, and made my way back to the kitchen.
As I passed the wagons of Pausanias, drawn up within the portal, I noted some of his men inspecting an axle, the wagon raised a few horts from the level.
Chapter Thirty-Four
“What is Chloe doing?” I asked, puzzled.
Chloe was the only girl in the slave quarters who could read. Mina, the slave of Trachinos, a former free woman, could also read, but she was not kept in the slave quarters. She now had her own collar, and was slept at the slave ring of Trachinos, who, as Lykos, Desmond, and Akesinos, now had a small, private room assigned to him. The kajirae who had been with the wagons, Jane, Eve, and myself, were forbidden to tend these rooms. We seldom saw the masters. Interestingly, these rooms could all be locked from the outside. Thus, they might serve as cells. I did not know the location of Astrinax, but supposed that he might be, as earlier, in attendance on the Lady Bina.
“I do not know,” said Nora.
“Is it not obvious?” asked Chloe, not pleased.
“I see what you are doing,” I said. “But I do not know what you are doing.”
“Barbarian,” said Chloe.
“So what are you doing?” I asked.
“Look,” she said.
“I see that you are kneeling at a small desk,” I said, “and are making marks on large sheets of papers, papers covered with squares. Beside you is a helmet, containing many small scraps of paper. You draw forth one small scrap of paper, look at it, and then write something in a square on one of the larger sheets, and then you put the small scrap of paper aside, and keep doing this.”
“Very good,” said Chloe.
“Do not be angry,” I said.
“Why should I not be angry?” she said. “I am literate. Why should I be put to this nonsense. You could do it, as well.”
“Let me try,” I said.
“Are you serious?” she asked, alertly, brightly.
