I had, perhaps, however, drunk too much Paga.
This afternoon Kamchak and I, leading four pack kaiila, had entered the first gate of nine-gated Turia.
On the pack animals were strapped boxes of precious plate, gems, silver vessels, tangles of jewelry, mirrors, rings, combs, and golden tarn disks, stamped with the signs of a dozen cities. These were brought as gifts to the Turians, largely as a rather insolent gesture on the part of the Wagon Peoples, indicating how little they cared for such things, that they would give them to Turians. Turian embassies to the Wagon Peoples, when they occurred, naturally strove to equal or surpass these gifts. Kamchak told me, a sort of secret I gather, that some of the things he carried had been exchanged back and forth a dozen times. One small, flat box, however, Kamchak would not turn over to the stewards of Phanius Turmus, whom he met at the first gate. He insisted on carrying that box with him and, indeed, it rested beside his right knee at the table now.
I was very pleased to enter Turia, for I have always beenj excited by a new city.
I found Turia to match my expectations. She was luxuri- ous. Her shops were filled with rare, intriguing paraphernalia. I smelled perfumes that I had never smelled before. More than once we encountered a line of musicians dancing single file down the center of the street, playing on their flutes and drums, perhaps on their way to a feast. I was pleased to see again, though often done in silk, the splendid varieties of caste colors of the typical Gorean city, to hear once more the cries of peddlers that I knew so well, the cake sellers, the hawkers of vegetables, the wine vendor bending under a double verrskin of his vintage. We did not attract as much attention as I had thought we would, and I gathered that every spring, at least, visitors from the Wagon Peoples must come to the city. Many people scarcely glanced at us, in spite of the fact that we were theoretically blood foes. I suppose that life in high-walled Turia, for most of its citizens, went on from day to day in its usual patterns oblivious of the usually distant Wagon Peoples. The city had never fallen, and had not been under siege in more than a century. The average citizen worried about the Wagon Peoples, customarily, only when he was outside the walls. Then, of course, he worried a great deal, and, I grant him, wisely.
One disappointment to me in trekking through the streets of Turia was that a crier advanced before us, calling to the women of the city to conceal themselves, even the female slaves. Thus, unfortunately, save for an occasional furtive pair of dark eyes peering from behind a veil in a recessed casement, we saw in our journey from the gate of the city to the House of Saphrar none of the fabled, silken beauties of Turia.
I mentioned this to Kamchak and he laughed loudly. He was right, of course. Among the Wagons, clad in a brief bit of cord and leather, branded, wearing nose ring and Turian collar, could be found many of the beauties of Turia. Indeed, to the annoyance of Elizabeth Cardwell, who had spent her nights under the wagon in the last weeks, there were two such in our own wagon, the girl Dina, whom I had snared in the contests of the bole, and her companion, the fine wench who had bitten the neck of Kamchak's kaiila and had attempted to conceal her injury by the lance of Albrecht, Tenchika, a Tuchuk corruption of her Thurman name, Tendite; she struggled to serve Kamchak wed, but it was clear that she lamented her separation from Albrecht of the Kassars; he had, surprisingly, twice tried to buy his little slave back, but Kamchak was holding out for a higher price; Dina, on the other hand, served me skillfully and devotedly; once Albrecht, having a bole match planned, tried to buy her back, as well as Tenchika, but I had demurred.
'Does it mean,' Dina had asked me that night, head to boot, 'that Dina's master is pleased with her?'
'Yes,' I said, 'it does.'
'I am happy,' she had said.
'She has fat ankles,' Elizabeth Cardwell had observed. 'Not fat,' I said, 'Strong, sturdy ankles.'
'If you like fat ankles,' Elizabeth had said, turning about, perhaps inadvertently revealing the delightful slimness of her own ankles, and leaving the wagon.
Suddenly I became aware again of the banquet of Saphrar of Turia.
My piece of bask meat, roasted, had arrived. I picked it up and began to chew on it. I liked it better cooked over the open-fires on the prairie, but it was good bask. I sank my teeth into the juicy meat, tearing it and chewing on it. I observed the banquet tables, laid out in an open-ended rectangle, permitting slaves to enter at the open end, facilitat- ing the serving, and, of course, allowing entertainers to perform among the tables. To one side there was a small altar to Priest-Kings, where there burned a small fire. On this fire, at the beginning of the feast the feast steward had scattered some grains of meal, some colored salt, some drops of wine. 'Ta-Sardar-Gor,' he had said, and this phrase had been repeated by the others in the room. 'To the Priest- Kings of Gor.' It had been the general libation for the banquet. The only one in the room who did not participate in this ceremony was Kamchak, who thought that such a li- bation, in the eyes of the sky, would not have been fitting. I partook of the libation out of respect for Priest-Kings, for one in particular, whose name was Misk.
A Turian sitting a few feet from me noted that I had partaken of the libation. 'I see,' he said, 'that you were not raised among the wagons.'
'No,' I said.
'He is Tarl Cabot of Ko-ro-ba,' Saphrar had remarked. 'How is it,' I asked, 'that you know my name?'
'One hears of such things,' he said.
I would have questioned him on this matter, but he hadj turned to a man behind him and was talking with him, some matter I gathered pertaining to the feast.
I forgot about it.
If there had been no women for us to view in the streets of Turin, Saphrar, merchant of the city, had determined to make that omission good at his banquet. There were several women present at the tables, free women, and several others, slaves, who served. The free women, shamelessly to the mind of the rather prudish Kamchak, lowered their veils and threw back the hoods of their Robes of Concealment, enjoying the feast, eating with much the same Gorean gusto as their men. Their beauty and the sparkle of their eyes, their laughter and conversation, to my mind, immeasurably improved the eve- ning. Many were swift-tongued, witty wenches, utterly charm- ing and uninhibited. I did think, however, that it was some- what unusual that they should appear in public unveiled, particularly with Kamchak and myself present. The women in bondage present, who served us, each wore four golden rings on each ankle and each wrist, locked on, which clashed as they walked or moved, adding their sound to the slave bells that had been fixed on their Turian collars, and that hung from their hair; the ears of each, too, hall been pierced and from each ear hung a tiny slave boil. The single garment of these women was the Turian camisk. I do not know particularly why it is referred to as a camisk, save that it is a simple garment for a female slave. The common camisk is a single piece of cloth, about eighteen inches wide, thrown over the girl's head and worn like a poncho. It usually falls a bit above the knees in the front and back and is belted with cord or chain. The Turian camisk, on the other hand, if it were to be laid out on the floor, would appear somewhat like an inverted «T» in which the bar of the «T» would be beveled on each side. It is fastened with a single cord. The cord binds the garment on the girl at three points, behind the neck, behind the back, and in front at the waist. The garment itself, as might be supposed, fastens behind the girl's neck, passes before her, passes between her legs and is then lifted and, folding the two sides of the T's bar about her hips, ties in front. The Turian camisk, unlike the common camisk, will cover a girl's brand; on the other hand, unlike the common camisk, it leaves the back uncovered and can be tied, and is, snugly, the better to disclose the girl's beauty.
We had been treated to exhibitions of juggling, fire swal- lowing, and acrobats. There had been a magician, who par- ticularly pleased Kamchak, and a man who, whip in hand, guided a dancing sleen through its paces.
I could pick up snatches of conversation between Kam- chak and Saphrar, and I gathered from what was said that they were negotiating places of meeting for the exchange of goods. Then, later in the evening, when I was drunker on Paga than I should have permitted myself to become, I heard them discuss details which could only have pertained to what Kamchak had called the games of Love War, details having to do with specifications of time, weapons and judges, and such. Then I heard the sentence, 'If she is to participate, you must deliver the golden sphere.'
Abruptly, it seemed, I came awake, no longer half asleep, more than half drunk. It seemed suddenly I was shocked awake and sober. I began to tremble, but held the table, and, I believe, betrayed no sign of my inward excitement. 'I can arrange that she is chosen for the games,' Saphrar was saying, 'but it must be worth my while.'
'How can you determine that she is selected?' Kamchak was asking.
'My gold can determine that,' Saphrar was saying, 'and further determine that she is ill defended.'
Oust of the corner of my eye I could see Kamchak's black eyes gleaming.
Then I heard the feast steward call out, his voice silencing all else, all conversation, even the musicians. The acrobats who were at the moment performing fled from between the tables. The feast steward's voice was heard, 'The Lady Aphris of Turia.'
I and all others turned our eyes to a wide, swirling marble stairway in the back and to the left of the lofty banquet hall in the house of Saphrar the merchant.
Down the stairway, slowly, in trailing white silk bordered with gold, the colors of the Merchants, there regally descend- ed the girl who was Aphris of Turia.
Her sandals were of gold and she wore matching gloves of gold.
Her face could not be seen, for it was veiled, a white silken veil trimmed with gold, nor even her hair, for it was hidden in the folds of the free woman's Robes of Conceal- ment, in her case, of course, done in the colors of the merchants.
Aphris of Turia, then, was of the caste of merchants. I recalled Kamchak had spoken of her once or twice. As the woman approached I suddenly became aware again of Saphrar speaking. 'Behold my ward,' he was saying, indi- cating the approaching girl.
'The richest woman in all Turia,' Kamchak said.
'When she reaches her majority,' Saphrar remarked. Until then, I gathered, her means were in the doubtless capable hands of Saphrar the merchant.
This supposition was later confirmed by Kamchak. Saphrar was not related to the girl, but had been appointed by the Turian merchants, on whom he undoubtedly exercised con- siderable influence, the guardian of the girl following the death of her father in a Paravaci caravan raid several years _ 92 before. The father of Aphris of Turia, Tethrar of Turia, had been the richest merchant in this city, itself one of the richest cities of Gor. There had been no surviving male heir and the considerable wealth of Tethrar of Turia was now that of his daughter, Aphris, who would assume control of these remark- able fortunes upon attaining her majority, which event was to occur this spring.
The girl, not unaware I am sure of the eyes upon her, stopped on the stairway and loftily surveyed the scene of the banquet. I could sense that she had almost immediately seen myself and Kamchak, strangers at the tables. Something in her carriage suggested that she might be amused.
I heard Saphrar whisper to Kamchak, whose eyes glowed as they rested on the figure in white and gold on the distant stairway.
'Is she not worth the golden sphere?' asked the mer- chant.
'It is hard to tell,' said Kamchak.
'I have the word of her serving slaves,' insisted Saphrar. 'She is said to be marvelous.'
Kamchak shrugged, his wily Tuchuk trading shrug. I had seen him use it several times while discussing the possible sale of little Tenchika to Albrecht in the wagon.
'The sphere is actually not of much value, Saphrar was saying, 'it is not truly of gold but only appears so.' 'Still,' Kamchak said, 'the Tuchuks are fond of it.' 'I would only wish it as a curiosity,' Saphrar was saying. 'I must think on the matter,' Kamchak was saying, not taking his eyes from Aphris of Turia.
'I know where it is,' Saphrar was saying, his lips pulled back, revealing the golden canines, 'I could send men for it.' Pretending not to listen I was, of course, as
