Kuurus said nothing.
'Perhaps I could tell you where to find him,' proposed Portus.
'I will find him,' said Kuurus.
'Of course,' said Portus. 'Of course.' The heavy man, sitting cross-legged, opposite the Assassin, began to sweat, fiddled with the damp blue and yellow silk covering his knee, and then with a nervous hand lifted a shaking bowl of paga to his lips, spilling some down the side of his face. 'I meant no harm,' he said.
'You are alive,' said Kuurus.
'May I ask, Killer,' asked Portus, 'if you come to make the first killing-or the second?'
'The second,' said Kuurus.
'Ah!' said Portus.
'I hunt,' said Kuurus.
'Of course,' said Portus.
'I come to avenge,' said Kuurus.
Portus smiled. 'That is what I meant,' he said, 'that it is good those in the black tunic are once again amongst us, that justice can be done, order restored, right upheld.'
Kuurus looked at him, the eyes not smiling. 'There is only gold and steel,' said he.
'Of course,' hastily agreed Portus. 'That is very true.'
'Why did you come to speak with me?'
'I would hire a sword such as yours,' said Portus.
'I hunt,' said Kuurus.
'Ar is a vast city,' said Portus. 'Perhaps it will take you time to find he whom you seek.'
Kuurus' eyes flickered.
Portus leaned forward. 'And meanwhile,' he said, 'you might earn considerable sums. I have work for such men as you. And much of the time you would be free, to hunt as you wished. Matters might well work out to our mutual advantage.'
'Who are you?' asked Kuurus.
'I am that Portus,' said he, 'who is Master of the House of Portus.'
Kuurus had heard of the House of Portus, one of the largest of the slave houses in the Street of Brands. He had known, of course, from the gown of blue and yellow silk that the man was a slaver.
'What is it that you fear?' asked Kuurus.
'There is a house greater than mine, or any on the Street of Brands,' said he.
'You fear this house?' asked Kuurus.
'Those of this house stand near the Administrator, and the High Initiate,' said Portus.
'What do you mean?' asked Kuurus.
'The gold of this house is heavy in the councils of the city.'
'The Administrator and the High Initiate,' asked Kuurus, 'owe their thrones to the gold of this house?'
Portus laughed bitterly. 'Without the gold of this house, how could the Administrator and the High Initiate have sponsored the races and the games that won them the favor of the lower castes?'
'But the lower castes do not elect the Administrator or the High Initiate,' said Kuurus. 'The Administrator is appointed by the High Council of the City and the High Initiate by the High Council of the Initiates of the City.'
'These councils,' said Portus scornfully, 'know well the way the lower castes yelp in the tiers.' He snorted. 'And there are many in the High Councils of the City who, if forced to decide between the steel of the hook knife and the feel of gold in their pouch, will choose gold to steel.' Portus winked at Kuurus. 'There is only gold and steel,' he said.
Kuurus did not smile.
Portus hastily pushed his paga bowl up to his mouth, and swilled again, his eyes wary of the Assassin across from him.
'Where does this house obtain riches such that they may so easily outbid all other factions in Ar?'
'It is a rich house,' said Portus, looking about himself. 'It is a rich house.'
'That rich?' asked Kuurus.
'I do not know where the gold comes from-all of it-,' said Portus. 'My own house could not begin to sponsor the games of even two days-we would be bankrupt.'
'Of what interest is this house to you?' asked Kuurus.
'It wants to be the single slave house of Ar,' whispered Portus.
Kuurus smiled.
'My house,' said Portus, 'is twenty generations old. We have bred, captured, trained, exchanged and sold slaves for half a millennium. The house of Portus is known on all Gor.' Portus looked down. 'Already six houses on the Street of Brands have been purchased or closed.'
'There has never been a monopoly on slaves in Ar,' said Kuurus.
'That is the wish, however, of the house of which I speak,' said Portus. 'Does it not offend you? Are you not outraged? Even in terms of merchandise and prices cannot you see what it would mean? Even now the lesser houses find it difficult to acquire premium slaves, and when we obtain them, we are undersold. Few go to the lesser houses to buy slaves this year in Ar.'
'How can this house of which you speak,' asked Kuurus, 'undersell so consistently? Is it that the number of slaves is so great that the profit taken on each is less?'
'I have thought long on it,' said Portus, 'and that cannot be all of it. I know this business well, the costs of information, organization, planning, acquisition, transportation and security, the care and feeding and training of the animals, the guards, the costs of the auctions, the taxes on sales, the deliveries to distant cities-and the staff of the house I speak of is large, skilled and highly paid-and their facilities are unparalleled in the City, both in size and appointments. They have interior baths which could rival the pools even of the Capacian Baths.' Portus nodded in puzzlement. 'No,' said Portus, 'they must have sources of gold other than the income on their merchandise.' Portus pushed one finger around in a puddle of splashed paga on the low table. 'I thought for a time,' he said, 'that they intended to sell at a radical loss until the other slave houses were forced to close, and then recoup their losses with profit by setting their own prices-but then when I considered again the gold which sponsored the games and races honoring the men who were to become Administrator and High Initiate, I decided it could not be. I am convinced the house of which I speak has major sources of gold other than the income on their merchandise.'
Kuurus did not speak.
'There is another strange thing about that house I do not understand,' said Portus.
'What?' asked Kuurus.
'The number of barbarian women they place on the block,' said Portus.
'There have always been barbarian women on Gor,' said Kuurus, dismissing the remark of Portus.
'Not in such numbers,' grumbled Portus. He looked at Kuurus. 'Have you any idea of the expense of acquiring a barbarian woman from beyond the cities-the distances involved? Normally they can be brought in only one at a time, on tarnback. A caravan of common slave wagons would take a year to go beyond the cities and return.'
'A hundred tarnsmen, well organized,' said Kuurus, 'could strike barbarian villages, bind a hundred wenches, and return in twenty days.'
'True,' said Portus, 'but commonly such raids take place on cylinders in given cities-the distances beyond the cities are great, and the prices paid for mere barbarian girls are less.'
Kuurus shrugged.
'Moreover,' said Portus, 'these are not common barbarian wenches.'
Kuurus looked up.
'Few of them have even a smattering of Gorean,' he said. 'And they act strangely. They beg and weep and whine. One would think they had never seen a slave collar or slave chains before. They are beautiful, but they are stupid. The only thing they understand is the whip.' Portus looked down, disgusted. 'Men even go to see them sold, out of curiosity, for they either stand there, numb, not moving, or scream and fight, or cry out in their barbarian tongues.' Portus looked up. 'But the lash teaches them what is expected of them on the block, and they then present themselves well-and some bring fair prices-in spite of being barbarian.'
'I gather,' said Kuurus, 'that you wish to hire my sword, that you may in some degree protect yourself from the men and the plans of the house of which you have spoken.'
'It is true,' said Portus. 'When gold will not do, only steel can meet steel.'
'You say that this house of which you speak is the largest and richest, the most powerful, on the Street of Brands?'
'Yes,' said Portus.
'What is the name of this house?' asked Kuurus.
'The House of Cernus,' said Portus.
'I shall permit my sword to be hired,' said Kuurus.
'Good!' cried Portus, his hands on the table, his eyes gleaming. 'Good!'
'By the House of Cernus,' said the assassin.
The eyes of Portus went wide, and his body trembled. He rose unsteadily to his feet, and staggered backwards, shaking his head, turned, and stumbled over one of the low tables, and fled from the room.
His drink finished, Kuurus rose and went to the darkened corner of the room, where the wall sloped down. He looked into the eyes of the girl in the yellow slave livery, who knelt there. Then he turned the key in the lock of collar seven and released her. Thrusting her to her feet and forcing her to walk before him, he went to the
