statement, although perhaps somewhat fearsome in the abstract, was a Kur approximation of a human smile. It is very different, as would be clear if you saw it, from that baring of fangs which indicates menace. Too, the ears were not laid back, which is an almost invariable sign among Kurii of readiness to attack, of intent to do harm. 'Farewell,' I whispered to it. I saw the smile spread more widely. I suddenly realized that it had heard me, though the men between us could not.
'Ready,' said an officer. 'Be ready.'
I saw spear points lower. The beast in its own ring was ringed, too, with steel.
It snarled at the men, and they hesitated. Then it threw back its great shaggy head and howled its defiance to the three moons, to the men who threatened it, to the universe and stars, to the world. Men shuddered, but did not break their circle. I admired them. They were good soldiers. Then the beast again turned its attention to the men. I thought I detected a low, almost inaudible growl. I saw the lips draw back again about the fangs, but this was no smile. For an instant, as it turned its head, its eyes, reflecting the light of one of the torches, blazed like molten metal. I saw the ears lay back against the side of the head.
Suddenly, at a word of command, the men rushed forward. The beast seized at spears, slapping them away, seizing some, breaking them, taking others, perhaps a dozen, in its body. I saw it standing, fighting and tearing, in the midst of men. More than one man I saw lifted and thrown aside. Then I saw it go down beneath bodies. Men swarmed about it, thrusting with their spears, some hacking downward with their swords. 'We have killed it!' cried one of the men. 'I smell glory,' it had said. 'It is a smell more exhilarating even than that of meat.' 'It is dead!' cried one of the men. 'It is dead! cried another. Was there so much glory here, I wondered. It did not seem a likely place for glory, the sand of a baiting pit, in a torchlit moonlight, in a country far from its own. No monuments would be erected to this beast. There would be no odes composed. Surely it would never be revered among its people. It would not be remembered, nor, if they had them, would it be sung in there songs. Its glory, if it had it, would have been its own, perhaps the splendor of a lonely moment that only the beast itself truly understood, a moment that was its own justification, and that needed no other, a moment that was sufficient onto itself.
'It is moving!' cried a man in terror.
Suddenly, from the midst of those bodies, howling, the Kur, spears in its body, thrust upward clawing and raging like some force of nature. It stood knee deep in bodies.
'Kill it!' screamed the officer. Again men charged, with spears and swords. In the bloody tumult men struck even one another. I saw it reach out and tear a;man from his fellows, disposing of him, half decapitating him with a slash of fangs to the throat, and seize another, tearing his head from his body. Then it wen down, bloody and terrible, again, beneath the weight or iron, and men. That was the thing, I recalled, which had been cast out of its own world for its alleged weakness. 'it is moving again!' screamed a man.
Once more I saw it rise up among bodies. I heard men weep, and continue to strike at it. How it prided itself on its refinements, one its sense of gentility. How vain it had been! How irritated I had even been with it, with its confounded supercilious arrogance. How jealous it was of being a gentleman. It went down again. 'We can't kill it!' screamed a man. 'We can't kill it!' It even cooked its meat. Once more it thrust its way up through bodies, now waist-deep about it. An arm hung from its jaws. Spears and swords struck at it, again and again. 'They will learn,' it had said, 'that even a gentleman know how to fight.' Twice more it tore its way up among bodies, and then, at last, men stepped wearily back from it. Bodies were pulled away. It lay alone on the sand, dead. I could not even pronounce its name.
'Wait,' said one of the officer. 'Where is the other fellow, Bosk of Port Kar?'
I then stepped behind the ubar's box and lifted the partly opened trap and lowered myself into the passage below. I then closed and locked the trap, from the bottom. As it was designed, it was almost impossible to distinguish, from the surface, from the arrangements of tiling behind the box.
I, below, heard men walking about on the tiling, and on the wooden tiers.
'Where is Bosk of Port Kar?' I heard.
'He is gone,' said another.
'He has disappeared,' said another.
21 What Occurred in the Apartments of Belnar; Leather Gloves
I spun about.
'I thought you might come here,' said Flaminius. 'No, do not draw.'
My hand hesitated. He had not drawn his own weapon. Behind him, in a rag of silk, was female slave.
'You may kneel, Yanina,' he said.
'Yes, Master,' she said, swiftly falling to her knees.
'You must forgive her,' he said. 'she is new to the collar. Only an Ahn or so ago was she branded.'
She who had been the Lady Yanina looked at me, frightened. Then she put down her head, swiftly. I had seen in her eyes, in that brief moment that she had looked at me, that already she had learned that she was slave. This does not take long in the vicinity of Gorean men.
'Do not draw,' he said.
'Is she yours?' I asked.
'Yes,' he said.
'A pretty slave,' I said.
'Yes,' he said.
She trembled, scrutinized.
'I brought her along,' he said. 'She was with another search party. Almost anyone who could recognize you was with one party or another.'
'I gathered that that might be the case,' I said.
'She was given to me by Belnar,' he said.
'Belnar is now dead,' I said.
'So I understand,' he said.
'The slave seems frightened,' I said.
'You have reason to be frightened, don't you, my dear?' asked Flaminius.
'Perhaps, Master,' she whispered. 'I do not know, Master.'
'Put your head down to the floor,' he said.
'Yes, Master,' she said.
'She was put in a state collar,' said Flaminius, 'with no specifications or restrictions. Accordingly, even if she had not been given to me, I could have obtained her for myself, sending a silver tarsk to the exchequer. Who would gainsay me in that?' He looked down at the girl. 'So in either case you would have come into my chains, wouldn't you, Yanina?' he asked.
'Yes, Master,' she said, her head to the floor.
'Are you here for the same reason that I am?' I asked.
'Perhaps,' he said.
I had returned by way of the passage behind the ubar's box in the baiting pit. Once here, I had begun my search, in various rooms, for obvious, unconcealed paraphernalia, of a sort that might be germane to kaissa, such things as boards and pieces, books, sheafs of papers, and records. I had, of course, in my return, lifted the dropped iron gate separating the private room, giving access to the passage, from the rest of the area. This was not difficult from the passage side. It had taken only a moment to locate the appropriate apparatus. I had then freed the lock bolts, which keep the gate in place once it has dropped, and, by means of a wheel, associated with chains and counterweights, raised the gate. The gate is freed, incidentally, by a small lever. Its fall is gravity controlled. The fall, though swift, is not destructive. The speed of its descent is controlled largely by the counterweights.
I had found what I had been looking for in a room apparently devoted to kaissa, in the midst of what were apparently merely the records of games, jotted on scraps of paper. Among those records, fitted in with them, were other papers. There was little doubt these were what I had sought. On one paper was a numbered list of
