Immediately the two loops of marsh vine knotted about my neck tightened, each taunt, pulling against the other.
The girl's hands were in my hair and she yanked my head back.
'He is of Port Kar,' she said, her hands in my hair, 'or intended to be of Port Kar!' She glared at Ho-Hak, as though demanding that he speak.
But Ho-Hak did not speak, nor did he seem particularly to notice the girl. Angrily she removed her hands from my hair, thrusting my head to one side. Ho-Hak seemed intent on regarding the leather-wrapped bow of supple Ka-la-na wood.
The women of rence growers, when in their own marshes, do no veil themselves, as is common among Gorean women, particularly of the cities. Moreover, they are quite capable of cutting rence, preparing it, hunting for their own food and, on the whole, of existing, if they wish it, by themselves. There are few tasks of the rence communities which they cannot perform as well as men. Their intelligence, and the work of their hands, is needed by the small communities. Accordingly they suffer little inhibitiion in the matters of speaking out and expressing themselves.
Ho-Hak reached down and unwrapped the leather from the yellow bow of supple Ka-la-na. The roll of sheaf and flight arrows spilled out to the woven mat that was the surface of the rence island.
There were gasps from two or three of the men present. I gathered they had seen small straight bows, but that this was the first long bow they had seen. Ho-Hak stood up. The bow was taller than several of the men present. He handed the bow to the blondish girl, she with blue eyes, who had been instrumental in my capture.
'String it,' said he to her.
Angrily she threw the marsh gants from her shoulder and took the bow. She seized the bow in her left had and braced the bottom of it against the instep of her left foot, taking the hemp cord whipped in silk, the string, in her right hand. she struggled.
At last, angrily, she thrust the bow back into the hands of Ho-Hak. Ho-Hak looked dow at me, the large ears inclining toward me lightly. 'This is the peasant bow, is it not?' he asked. 'Called the great bow, the long bow?' 'It is,' I said.
'Long ago,' said he, 'in a village once, on the lower slopes of the Thentis range, about a campfire, I heard sing of this bow.'
I said nothing.
He handed the bow to the fellow with the headband of pearls of the Vosk sorp bound about his forehead. 'String it,' said Ho-hak.
The fellow handed his marsh spear to a companion and turned to the bow. He took it confidently. Then the look of confindence vanished. Then his face reddened, and then the veins stood out on his forehead, and then he cried out in disgust, and then he threw the bow back at Ho-Hak.
Ho-Hak looked at it and then set it against the instep of his left foot, taking the bow in his left hand and the string in his right.
There was a cry of awe from about the circle as he strung the bow.
I admired him. He had strength, and much strength, for he had strung the bow smoothly, strength it might be from the galleys, but strength, and superb strength.
'Well done,' said I to him.
Then Ho-Hak took, from among the arrows on the mat, the leather bracer and fastened it about his left forearm, that the arm not be lacerated by the string, and took the small tab as well, putting the first and second fingers on his right hand through, that in drawing the string the flesh might not be cut to the bone. The he took, from the unwrapped roll of arrows, now spilled on the elather, a flight arrow, and this, to my admiration, he fitted to the bow and drew it to the very pile itself.
He held the arrow up, pointing it into the sky, at an angle of some fifty degrees.
Then there came the clean, swift, singing flash of the bowstring and the flight arrow was aloft.
There were cries from all, of wonder and astonishment, for they would not have believed such a thing possible.
The arrow seemed lost, as though among the clouds, and so far was it that it seemed vanished in its falling.
The group was silent.
Ho-Hak unstrung the bow. 'It is with this,' he said, 'that peasants defend their holdings.'
He looked from face to face. The he replaced the bow, putting it with its arrows, on the leather spread upon the mat of woven rence that was the surface of the island.
Ho-Hak regarded me. 'Are you skilled with this bow?' he asked.
'Yes,' I said.
'See that he does not escape,' said Ho-Hak.
I felt the prongs of two marsh spears in my back. 'He will not escape,' said the girl, putting her fingers in the ropes that held my throat. I could feel her knuckles in the side of my neck. She shoot the ropes. She irritated me. She acted as though it were she herself who had taken me.
'Are you of the peasants?' asked Ho-Hak of me.
'No,' I said. 'I am of the Warriors.'
'This bow, though,' said one of the men holding my neck ropes, 'is of the peasants.'
'I am not of the Peasants,' I said.
Ho-Hak looked at the man who wore teh headband of pearls of the Vosk sorp. 'With such a bow,' he said to that man, 'we might live free in the marsh, free of Port Kar.'
'It is a weapon of peasants,' said the man with the headband, he who had been unable to bend the bow.
'So?' asked Ho-Hak.
'I,' said the man, 'am of the Growers of Rence. I, for one, am not a Peasant.' 'Nor am I!' cried the girl.
The others, too, cried their assent.
'Besides,' said another man, 'we do not have metal for the heads of arrows, nor arrowwood, and Ka-la-na does not grow in the marsh. And we do not have cords of strength enough to draw such bows.'
'And we do not have leather,' added another.
'We could kill tharlarion,' said Ho-Hak, 'and obtain leather. And perhaps the teeth of the marsh shark might be fashioned in such a way as to tip arrows.' 'There is no Ka-la-na, no cord, no arrowwood,' said another.
'We might trade for such things,' said Ho-Hak. 'There are peasants who live along the edges of the delta, particularly to the east.'
The man with the headband, he who had not been able to bend the bow, laughed. 'You, Ho-Hak,' said he, 'were not born to rence.'
'No,' said Ho-Hak. 'That is true.'
'But we were,' said the man. 'We are Growers of the Rence.'
There was a murmur of assent, grunts and shiftings in the group.
'We are not Peasants,' said the man with the headband. 'We are Growers of the Rence!'
There was an angry cry of confirmation from the group, mutterings, shots of agreement.
Ho-Hak once again sat down on the curved shell of the great Vosk sorp, that shell that served him as a throne in this domain, an island of rence in the delta of the Vosk.
'What is to be done with me?' I asked.
'Torture him for festival,' suggested the fellow with the headband of pearls of the Vosk sorp.
Ho-Hak ears lay flat against the side of his head. He looked evenly at the fellow. 'We are not of Port Kar,' said he.
The man with the headband shrugged, looking about. He saw that his suggestion had not met with much enthusiasm. This, naturally, did not displease me. He shrugged again, and looked down at the woven surface of the island. 'So,' I asked, 'what is to be my fate?'
'We did not ask you here,' said Ho-Hak. 'We did not invite you to cross the line of the blood mark.'
'Return to me my belongings,' I said, 'and I shall be on my way and trouble you no longer.'
Ho-hak smiled.
The girl beside me laughed, and so, too, did the man with the headband, he who had not been able to bend the bow. Several of the others laughed as well. 'Of custom,' said Ho-Hak, 'we give those we capture who are of Port Kar a choice.'
'What is the choice?' I asked.
'You will be thrown bound to the marsh tharlarion, of course,' said Ho-Hak. I paled.
'The choice,' said Ho'Hak, 'is simple.' He regarded me. 'Either you will be thrown alive to the march tharlarion or, if you wish, we will kill you first.' I struggled wildly against the marsh vine, futilely. The rence growers, without emotion, watched me. I fought the vine for perhaps a full Ehn. Then I stopped. The vine was tight. I knew I had been perfectly secured. I was theirs. The girl beside me laughed, as did the man with the headband, and certain of the others. 'There is never any trace of the body,' said Ho-Hak.
I looked at him.
'Never,' he said.
Again I struggled against the vine, but again futilely.
'It seems to easy that he should die so swiftly,' said the girl. 'He is of Port Kar, or would be of that city.'
'True,' said the fellow with the headband, he who had been unable to bend the bow. 'Let us toture him for festival.'
'No,' said the girl. She looked at me with fury. 'Let us rather keep him as a miserable slave.'
Ho-Hak looked up at her.
'Is that not a sweeter vengeance?' hissed she. 'that rightless he should serve the Growers of Rence as a beast of burden?'
'Let us rather throw him to the tharlarion,' said the man with the headband of the pearls of the Vosk sorp. 'That way we shall be rid of him.'
'I say,' said the blondis girl, 'let us rather shame him and Port Kar as well. Let him be worked and beaten by day and tethered by night. Each hour with labors, and whips and thongs, let us show him our hatred for Port Kar and those of that city!'
'How is it,' I asked the girl, 'that you so hate those of Port Kar?' 'Silence, Slave!' she cried and thrust her fingers into the ropes about my neck, twisting her hand. I could not swallow, nor breathe. The faces about me began to blacken. I fought to retain consciousness.
Then she withdrew her hand.
I gasped for breath, choking. I threw up on the mat. There were cries of disgust, and derision. I felt the prongs of marsh spears in my back. 'I say,' said he with the
