we sped high over the prairie I wondered at how it was that Kamchak was withdrawing the wagons and bosk from Turia that he would so soon abandon the siege.
Then, in the dawn, we saw the wagons below us, and the bosk beyond them. Already fires had been lit and there was much activity in the camp of the Tuchuks, the cooking, the checking of wagons, the gathering and hitching up of the wagon bosk. This, I knew, was the morning on which the wagons moved away from Turia, toward distant Thassa, the Sea. Risking arrows, I, followed by Harold, descended to alight among the wagons.
I had now been in the city of Turia some four days, having returned on foot in the guise of a peddler of small jewels. I had left the tarn with the wagons. I had spent my last tarn disk to buy a couple of handfuls of tiny stones, many of them of little or no value; yet their weight in my pouch gave me some pretext for being in the city.
I had found Kamchak, as I had been told I would, at the wagon of Kutaituchik, which, drawn up on its hill near the standard of the four bask horns, had been heaped with what wood was at hand and filled with dry grass. The whole was then drenched in fragrant oils, and that dawn of the retreat, Kamchak, by his own hand, hurled the torch into the wagon. Somewhere in the wagon, fixed in a sitting position, weapons at hand, was Kutaituchik, who had been Kamchak's friend, and who had been called Ubar of the Tuchuks. The smoke of the wagon must easily have been seen from the distant walls of Turia. ~ Kamchak had not spoken but sat on his kaiila, his face dark with resolve. He was terrible to look upon and I, though his friend, did not dare to speak to him. I had not returned to the wagon I had shared with him, but had come immedi- ately to the wagon of Kutaituchik, where I had been in- formed he was to be found.
Clustered about the hill, in ranks, on their kaiila, black lances in the stirrup, were several of the Tuchuk Hundreds. Angrily they watched the wagon burn.
I wondered that such men as Kamchak and these others would so willingly, abandon the siege of Turia.
At last when the wagon had burned and the wind moved about the blackened beams and scattered ashes across the green prairie, Kamchak raised his right hand. 'Let the stan- dard be moved,' he cried.
I observed a special wagon, drawn by a dozen bask, being pulled up the hill, into which the standard, when uprooted, would be set. In a few minutes the great pole of the standard had been mounted on the wagon and was descending the hill, leaving on the summit the burned wood and the black ashes that had been the wagon of Kutaituchik, surrendering them now to the wind and the rain, to time and the snows to come, and to the green grass of the prairie.
'Turn the wagons!' called Kamchak.
Slowly, wagon by wagon, the long columns of the Tuchuk retreat were formed, each wagon in its column, each column in its place, and, covering pasangs of prairie, the march front Turia had begun.
Far beyond the wagons I could see the herds of bask, and the dust from their hoofs stained the horizon.
Kamchak rose in his stirrups. 'The Tuchuks ride from Turial' he cried.
Rank by rank the warriors on the kaiila, dour, angry, silent, turned their mounts away from the city and slowly went to find their wagons, save for the Hundreds that would flank the withdrawal and form its rear guard.
Kamchak rode his kaiila up the hill until he stood, that cold dawn, at the edge of the burned wood and ashes of Kutaituchik's wagon. He stayed there for some time, and then turned his mount away, and came slowly down the hill. Seeing me, he stopped. 'I am pleased to see you live,' he said.
I dropped my head, acknowledging the bond he had ac- knowledged. My heart felt grateful to the stern, fierce war- rior, though he had been in the past days harsh and strange, half drunk with hatred for Turia. I did not know if the Kamchak I had known would ever live again. I feared that part of him perhaps that part I had loved best had died the night of the raid, when he had entered the wagon of Kutaituchik. ~ Standing at his stirrup I looked up. 'Will you leave like this?' I asked. 'Is it enough?'
He looked at me, but I could read no expression on his face. 'The Tuchuks ride from Turia,' he said. He then rode away, leaving me standing on the hill.
Somewhat to my surprise I had no difficulty the next morning, after the withdrawal of the wagons, in entering the city. Before leaving the wagons I had joined them briefly on their march, long enough to purchase my peddler's disguise and the pound or so of stones which was to complete it. I purchased these things from the man from whom Kamchak had, on a happier afternoon, obtained a new saddle and set of quivas. I had seen many things in the man's wagon and I had gathered, correctly it seems, that he was himself a peddler of sorts. I then, on foot, following for a time the tracks of the departing wagons, then departing from them, returned to the vicinity of Turia. I spent the night on the prairie and then, on what would have been the second day of the retreat, entered the city at the eighth hour. My hair was concealed in the hood of a thin, ankle-length rep-cloth gar- ment, a dirty white through which ran flecks of golden thread, a fit garment, in my opinion, for an insignificant merchant. Beneath my garment, concealed, I carried sword and quiva.
I was hardly questioned by guards at the gates of Turia, for the city is a commercial oasis in the plains and during a year hundreds of caravans, not to mention thousands of small merchants, on foot or with a single tharlarion wagon, enter her gates. To my great surprise the gates of Turia stood open after the withdrawal of the wagons and the lifting of the siege. Peasants streamed through them returning to their fields and also hundreds of townsfolk for an outing, some of them to walk even as far as the remains of the old Tuchuk camp, hunting for souvenirs. As I entered I regarded the lofty double gates, and wondered how long it would take to close them.
As I hobbled through the city of Turia, one eye half shut, staring at the street as though I hoped to find a lost copper tarn disk among the stones, I made my way toward the compound of Saphrar of Turia. I was jostled in the crowds, and twice nearly knocked down in the guard of Phanius Turmus, Ubar of Turia.
I was vaguely conscious, from time to time, that I might be followed. I dismissed this possibility, however, for, glancing about, I could find no one I might fear. The only person I saw more than once was a slip of a girl in Robes of Concealment and veil, a market basket on her arm, who the second time passed me, not noticing me. I breathed a sigh of relief. It is a nerve-wracking business, the negotiation of an enemy city, knowing that discovery might bring torture or sudden death, at best perhaps an Impalement by sundown on the city's walls, a warning to any other who might be similarly tempted to transgress the hospitality of a Gorean city. I came to the ring of flat, cleared ground, some hundred feet or so wide, which separates the walled compound of buildings which constitutes the House of Saphrar of Turia from all the surrounding structures. I soon learned, to my irritation, that one could not approach the high compound wall more closely than ten spear lengths.
'Get away you!' cried a guard from the wall, with a crossbow. 'There is no loitering here'
'But master!' I cried. 'I have gems and jewels to show the noble Saphrar!'
'Approach then the nearer gate!' he called. 'And state your business.'
I found a rather small gate in the wall, heavily barred, and begged admittance to show my wares to Saphrar. I hoped to be ushered into his presence and then, on the threat of slaying him, secure the golden sphere and a tarn for escape. To my chagrin I was not admitted into the compound, but my pitiful stock of almost worthless stones was examined outside the gate by a steward in the company of two armed warriors. It took him only a few moments to discover the value of the stones and, when he did, with a cry of disgust, he hurled them away from the gate into the dust, and the two warriors, while I pretended fright and pain, belabored me with the hilts of their weapons. 'Be gone, Fool!' they snarled.
I hobbled after the stones, and fell to my knees in the dust, scrabbling after them, moaning and crying aloud. I heard the guards laugh.
I had just picked up the last stone and tucked it back in my pouch and was about to rise from my knees when I found myself staring at the high, heavy sandals, almost boots, of a warrior.
'Mercy, Master,' I whined.
'Why are you carrying a sword beneath your robe?' he asked.
I knew the voice. It was that of Kamras of Turia, Champion of the City, whom Kamchak had so sorely bested in the games of Love War.
I lunged forward seizing him by the legs and upended him in the dust and then leaped to my feet and ran, the hood flying off behind me.
I heard him cry. 'Stop that man! Stop him! I know him! He is Tart Cabot of Ko-ro-ba! Stop him!'
I stumbled in the long robe of the merchant and cursed and leaped up and ran again. The bolt of a crossbow splat- tered into a brick wall on my right, gouging a cupful of masonry loose in chips and dust.;, I darted down a narrow street. I could hear someone, probably Kamras, and then one or two others running after me. Then I heard a girl cry out, and scream, and two men curse. I glanced behind me to see that the girl who carried the market basket had inadvertently fallen in front of the warriors. She was crying angrily at them and waving her broken basket. They pushed her rudely to one side and hurried on. By that time I had rounded a corner and leaped to a window, pulled myself up to the next window, and hauled myself up again and onto the flat roof of a shop. I heard the running feet of the two warriors, and then of six more men, pass in the street below. Then some children, screaming, ran after the soldiers. I heard some speculative conversation in the street below, between two or three passersby, then it seemed quiet.
I lay there scarcely daring to breathe. The sun on the flat roof was hot. I counted five Gorean Ehn, or minutes. Then I decided I had better move across the roofs in the opposite direction, find a sheltered roof, stay there until nightfall and then perhaps try to leave the city. I might go after the wagons, which would be moving slowly, obtain the tarn I had left with them, and then return on tarnback to Saphrar's house. It would be extremely dangerous, of course, to leave the city in the near future. Certainly word would be at the gates to watch for me. I had entered Turia easily. I did not expect I would leave as easily as I had entered. But how could I stay in the city until vigilance at the gates might be relaxed, perhaps three or four days from now? Every guardsman in Turia would be on the lookout for Tarl Cabot, who unfortunately, was not difficult to recognize.
About this time I heard someone coming along the street whistling a tune. I had heard it. Then I realized that I had heard it among the wagons of the Tuchuks. It was a Tuchuk tune, a wagon tune, sometimes sung by the girls with the bask sticks.
I picked up the melody and whistled a few bars, and then the person below joined me and we finished the turn. Cautiously I poked my head over the edge of the roof. The street was deserted save for a girl, who was standing below, looking up toward the roof. She was dressed in veil and Robes of Concealment. It was she whom I had seen before, when I had thought I might be followed. It was she who had inadvertently detained my pursuers. She carried a broken market basket.
'You make a very poor spy, Tart Cabot,' she said.
'Dina of Turia!' I cried.
I stayed four days in the rooms above the shop of Dina of Turia. There I dyed my hair black and exchanged the robes of the merchant for the yellow and brown tunic of the Bakers, to which caste her father and two brothers had belonged.
Downstairs the wooden screens that had separated the shop from the street had been splintered apart; the counter had been broken and the ovens ruined, their oval domes shattered, their iron doors twisted from their hinges; even the top stones on tile two grain mills had been thrown to the floor and broken.
At one time, I gathered from Dina, her father's shop had been the most famed of the baking shops of Turia, most of which are owned by Saphrar of Turia, whose interests range widely, though operated naturally, as Gorean custom would require, by members of the Caste of Bakers. Her father had refused to sell the shop to Saphrar's agents, and take his employment under the merchant. Shortly thereafter some seven or eight ruffians, armed with clubs and iron ban, had attacked the shop, destroying its equipment. In attempting to defend against this attack both her father and her two older brothers had been beaten to death. Her mother had died shortly thereafter of shock. Dina had lived for a time on the savings of the family, but had then taken them, sewn in the lining of her roles, and purchased a place on a caravan wagon bound for Ar, which caravan had been ambushed by Kassars, in which raid she herself, of course, had fallen into their hands.
'Would you not like to hire men and reopen the shop?' I asked.
