He stood unsteadily, half crouching over, looking at me with disbelief, his hand thrust into his left armpit.
'Forgive me, Master,' asid I, with concern.
Unsteadily he went elsewhere, to examine others farther along the market chain. 'Do that again,' said the slave master, 'amd I will cut your throat.' 'I doubt,' said I, 'that Chenbar and Lurius would much approve of that.' 'Perhaps not,' said the slave master, grinning.
'What do you for that slave?' asked a captain, a tall man with a small, carefully trimmed beard.
'Fifty copper tarn disks,' said the slave master.
'It is too much,' said the captain.
I agreed, but it did not seem up to me to enter into the question.
'That is the price,' said the slave master.
'Very well,' said the captain gesturing to a scribe near him with a wallet of coins slung over his shoulder, to pay the slave master.
'May I ask,' I asked, 'the name of my master and his ship?'
'I am Tenrik,' said he, 'Tenrik of Temos. Your ship will be the Rena of Temos.' 'And when do we sail?' I asked.
He laughed. 'Slave,' he said, 'you ask questions like a passager.'
I smiled.
'With the evening's tide,' he said.
I bowed my head. 'Thank you, Master,' said I.
Tenrik, followed by the scribe, turned and left. I noted that now the fisherman had finished with his net and that he, too, was preparing to depart. He folded the net carefully and dropped it over his left shoulder. He then picked up his trident in his right hand and, not looking back, took his way from the slaves' wharf.
The slave master was again counting the fifty copper tarn disks.
I shook my head. 'Too much,' I told him.
He shrugged and grinned. 'Whatever the market will bear,' he said.
'Yes,' I said, 'I guess you are right.'
I was not displeased when I was conducted to the Rena of Temos. She was indeed a round ship. I noted with satisfaction the width of her beam and the depth of her keel. Such a ship would be slow.
I did not much care for the crusts, and the onions and peas, on which we fed, but I did not expect to be eating them long.
'You will not find this an easy ship to row,' said the oar-master, chaining my ankles to the heavy footbrace.
'The lot of a slave is miserable,' I told him.
'Further,' he laughed, 'you will not find me an easy master.'
'The lot of a slave is indeed miserable,' I lamented.
He turned the key in the locks and, laughing, turned about and went to his seat, facing us, in the stern of the rowing hold.
Before him, since this was a large ship, there sat a keleustes, a strong man, a time-beater, with leather-wrapped wrists. He would mark the rowing stroke with blows of wooden, leather-cushioned mallets on the head of a huge copper-covered drum.
'Out oars!' called the oar-master.
I, with the others, slid my oar outboard.
Above us, on the upper deck, I could hear the crieds of the seamen, casting off mooring lines, shoving away from the dock with the traditional three long poles. The sails would not be dropped from the yards until the ship was clear of the harbor.
I heard the creak of the great side-rudders and felt the heavy, sweet, living movement of the caulked timbers of the ship.
We were now free of land.
The eyes of the ship, painted on either side of the bow, would now have turned toward the opening of the harbor of Telnus. Ships of Gor, of whatever class or type, always have eyes painted on them, either in a head surmounting the prow, as in tarn ships, or, as in the Rena, as in round ships, on either side of the bow. It is the last thing that is done for the ship before it is first launched. The painting of the eyes reflects the Gorean seaman's belief that the ship is a living thing. She is accordingly given eyes, that she may see her way. 'Ready oars!' called the oar-master.
The oars were poised.
'Stroke!' called the oar-master.
The keleustes struck the great copper drum before him with the leather-cushioned mallet.
As one the oars entered the water, dipping and moving within it. My feet thrust against the footbrace and I drew on the oar.
Slowly the ship, like a sweet, fat bird, heavy and stately, began to move toward the opening between the two high, round towers that guard the entrance to the walled harbor of Telnus, capito city of the island of Cos, seat of its Ubar's throne.
We had now been two days at sea.
I and the others, from our pans, were eating one of our four daily rations of bread, onions and peas. We were passing a water skin about among us. The oars were inboard.
We had not rowed as much as normally we would have. We had had a fair wind for two days, which had slacked off yesterday evening.
The Rena of Temos, like most round ships, had two permanent masts, unlike the removable mast of the war galleys. The main mast was a bit forward of amidships, and foremast was some four or five yards abaft of the ship's yoke. Both were lateen rigged, the yard of the foresail being about half the length of the yard of the mailsail. We had made good time for a heavy ship, but then the wind had slacked.
We had rowed fro several Ahn this morning.
It was now something better than an Ahn past noon.
'I understand,' said the oar-master, confronting me, 'that you were a Captain in Port Kar.'
'I am a captain,' I said.
'But in Port Kar,' he said.
'Yes,' I said, 'I am a Captain in Port Kar.'
'But this is not Port Kar,' he said.
I looked at him. 'Port Kar,' I said, 'is wherever her power is.'
He looked at me.
'I note,' I said, 'the wind has slackened.'
His face turned white.
'Yes,' I said.
At that moment, from far above, from the basket on the main mast, came the cry of the lookout, 'Two ships off the port beam!'
'Out and read oars!' cried the oar-master, running to his chair.
I put down my pan of bread, onions and peas, sliding it under the bench. I might want it later.
I slid the oar out of the thole port and readied it.
Above on the deck I could hear running feet, men shouting.
I heard the voice of the Captain, Tenrik, crying to his helmsmen, 'Hard to starboard!'
The big ship began to swing to starboard.
But then another cry, wild, drifted down from the basket on the main mast, 'Two more ships! Off the starboard bow!'
'Helm ahead!' cried Tenrik. 'Full sail! Maximun beat!'
As soon as the Rena had swung to her original course, the oar-master cried 'Stroke!' and the mallets of the keleustes began to strike, in great beats, the copper- covered drum.
Two seamen came down from the upper deck and seized whips from racks behind the oar-master.
I smiled.
Beaten or not, the oarsmen could only draw their oars so rapidly. And it would not be rapidly enough.
I heard another cry drifting down from the basket far above. 'Two more ships astern!'
The heavy, leather-cushioned mallets of the keleustes struck again and again on the copper-covered drum.
I heard, about a half an Ahn later, Tenrik call up to the lookout.
The man carried a long glass of the builders.
'Can you make out their flag?' he cried.
'It is white,' he cried, 'with stripes of green. It bears on its fielf the head of a bosk!'
One of the slaves, chained before me, whispered over his shoulder. 'What is your name, Captain?'
'Bosk,' I told him, pulling on the oar.
'Aiii!' he cried.
'Row!' screamed the oar-master.
The seamen with the whips rushed between the benches, but none, of all those there chained, slacked on the oars.
'They are gaining!' I heard a seaman cry from above.
'Faster!' someone cried from above decks.
But already the keleustes was pounding maximun beat. And doubtless that beat could not be long maintained.
About a quarter of an Ahn later I heard what I had been waiting for. 'Two more ships!' cried the lookout.
'Where?' cried Tenrik.
'Dead ahead!' cried the lookout. 'Dead ahead!'
'Helm half to starboard!' cried Tenrik.
