discovered, suspicious piece of paper with strange symbols or letters inscribed on it. Second, if one suspects a message is conveyed, it is not easily discovered what the message is. Thirdly, the message itself is not obvious, even if discovered. Fourthly, once the message is delivered, the deck is cleaned, and all that remains is a simple deck of cards, to be sure one now ready for a new message.”
“A slave should now withdraw,” I said.
“Remain on your knees,” he said.
He then placed the deck of cards on the small table, and regarded it thoughtfully. He was, I supposed, unraveling the message in his mind, bit by bit. He drew forth no paper nor a marking stick from the chest. I thus supposed the substitutions were indeed simple, perhaps as simple as a reordering of the alphabet. In any event, there would be no lingering physical record of the message, no ashes suggesting its destruction, or such.
While he worked my attention strayed to the slave ring, and its loop of chain, at the foot of his simple couch. It was such as might be fit for a simple girl, a low slave. Yet so simple a device might confine a captured, stripped Ubara as well. I looked to the slave whip, suspended from its peg on the wall. I feared that simple implement, so useful in establishing and maintaining diligence amongst kajirae. It is seldom used, if ever, but it will be used, we know, if we are not pleasing. We do our best to be pleasing. We are not free women.
I wondered what it would be, to be whipped by Desmond of Harfax. I would then be well assured of his attention. Would that not put the seal of my slavery upon me and the badge of his ownership? Surely it would well remind me of my bondage, and make clear to me who it was who owned me.
In a few Ehn, with a cloth, he rubbed clean the edge of the deck, and the speckling was gone.
“Master?” I said.
“My principal,” he said, “is preparing to conclude his business, and leave the Cave.”
I assumed his principal must be Astrinax, or in communication with Astrinax, as the message I had brought had been from Astrinax.
“We will then try to escape?” I said.
“One should,” he said, “before the snows.”
“Men are with us?” I asked.
“Several,” he said.
“I rejoice,” I said. “What is wrong?” I asked. “Master seems distressed.”
“The project of my principal,” he said, “seems unduly limited.”
“How so?” I asked. “Surely the kaissa sheets will be brought to the cities, surely men will be warned?”
“All that,” he said.
“What more?” I asked.
“There is nothing here,” he said, “pertaining to the destruction of Agamemnon.”
Chapter Forty-Two
As noted, Lucius, and some few cohorts, had, as yet, escaped apprehension. On the other hand, for most practical purposes, order had been restored in the Cave, and matters, with some exceptions, were much as they had been earlier, before the revolt. Three differences, or obvious differences, for I did not know what others might be being enacted privately, were that the container thought by some to be pertinent to the person of Agamemnon was now seldom publicly visible, the men in the Cave had been disarmed, even to knives, and policing in the Cave was assigned exclusively to Kurii, for example patrols in the halls, and the guards at the great portal.
Prior to the revolt I had often brought provender and drink to the guards at the great portal, at that time men, usually two in number. This task remained mine, though the nature of the guard had changed. It was one morning in the Seventh Passage Hand, I think the second day, shortly before the Ninth Ahn, that I approached the great portal. The day was bright. Sometimes, when Tor-tu-Gor was almost overhead, the slopes of the Voltai, beneath its blaze, seemed almost white, which anomaly, I took it, had to do with some aspect of reflected light. The shadows of the valleys and crevices then could seem like black wounds. I bore no tray now, but a yoke, from each terminus of which was slung a skin of water and a haunch of tarsk. It was heavy. My shoulders would ache. The feeding of Kurii often reminded me of the feeding of carnivores.
Sometimes, in discharging this errand, I would see Grendel returning from the outside. I knew he had the freedom to come and go, as he might wish. I did not understand the nature of these excursions, but I supposed they might be explicable in terms as obvious as escaping the tedium of the Cave, a zest for movement or fresh air, and perhaps even some light hunting. Grendel tended to enjoy open vistas and the sun; most Kurii, it seemed, felt more at ease in closed spaces and conditions of reduced light.
My yoke, with its burden of food and drink, was heavy, at least for me. I hoped I would not see Grendel returning from the outside.
One of the guards waved me forward, impatiently. He did not bother to use his translator, nor was there any need to do so. I tried to hurry, but not so much that I might fall. I was sure that would displease the beasts. What might be a simple cuff from a man might break my neck if it were delivered by a Kur. The yoke cut across my shoulders.
When I encountered Grendel, either in the vicinity of the portal, or in the large halls, I kept my head down, and pretended not to see him. I did not want our eyes to meet. Had they met I would have had to assume first obeisance position, and then hold that position until summoned, or he had passed. I do not know if he looked upon me, or not. I was helplessly and futilely angry with Grendel, whose faithlessness, and treachery, cruelty, and ambition, so shocking and dismaying me, had betrayed his friends, his principles, his honor, his allies, his brethren of a far world, Grendel who had used his cleverness to win greater prospects from the conspirators, Grendel who was willing to recruit allies on a far world to provision and support a war which might reduce, if not destroy, the humans of Gor, and perhaps, later, of another world, as well. Too, his pretense of loyalty to, if not affection for, the Lady Bina had been a sham. He cared no more for her than any other Kur, to whom humans might seem at best little more than temporarily useful vermin.
The guard waved me forward, again.
I did not want to fall. I could move only so quickly. The weights on the yoke swung. I feared to be pulled off balance.
Then I had come to the portal and the guard, with one hand, lifted the yoke from my shoulders, and flung it, and the suspended meat and skins of drink, to the table-like shelf at the right side of the portal.
I backed away a little.
I expected to receive back the yoke, with its hooks.
This morning something was different at the great portal. There were two guards, as usual, but, rather back and to the side, there were two other Kurii, each armed with one of the large, four-quarreled crossbows, which I had seen in the place of cells, weapons which a man could have hardly lifted, let alone load and accurately fire.
I did not think those two beasts could have been easily seen, from the outside. Certainly I did not understand their presence.
One of the guards lifted a haunch of tarsk and tore at it with his teeth. I saw a fang sunk deep into the meat, anchoring it, and then a huge piece was wrenched free, and the long, dark tongue wrapped itself about this, and thrust it back, into the toothed darkness, and, in a moment, I witnessed its passage, sliding downward, under the fur of the throat. Kurii were no more likely to chew food than a larl or sleen. It looked at me, while it was disposing of this gorge of meat. I supposed that a carnivore, in the wild, is likely to eat quickly, to eat while it can. Time might be lost in careful chewing. There appear to be compensations involved in this sort of thing. Such a piece of meat, even one much smaller, would choke a human; on the other hand, the structure of the human throat is such that it is capable of assisting in the utterance of a subtle and theoretically infinite variety of sounds. It seems thus that in nature an organ which may constitute a danger or increased hazard in one respect may in another respect confer a significant advantage.
I looked away from the feeding Kur.
Normally, particularly when humans had been at the portal, I had enjoyed lingering in its vicinity, to look outside, and draw in the fresh air. With the Kurii, on the other hand, I thought it best to withdraw as soon as it was
