I had nothing.
“Captain?” asked Thurnock.
I slumped over the tiller.
22 There is a Fair Wind for Port Kar
The wind was cold that swept along the stony beach. The men stood, their cloaks gathered about them. I sat, in blankets, in a captain’s chair, brought from the Tesephone. Thassa was green, and cold. The sky was gray. At their anchors, fore and aft, some quarter of a pasang from shore, swung the Rhoda, in her yellow, now dim in the grayness of the morning, and the Tesephone, on her flag line, snapping, an ensign bearing the following device, the head of a bosk, in black, over a field of white, marked with broad stripes of green, a flag not unknown on Thassa, that of Bosk from the Marches, a captain of Port Kar.
From the blankets I looked across the beach, to the stockade, which had been that of Sarus. The gate opened, and emerging, came Marlenus, followed by his men, eighty-five warriors of Ar. They were clad in skins, and in garments of Tyros. Several were armed well, with weapons taken from those of Tyros. Others carried merely knives, or light spears, taken from Hura’s panther girls. With them, coming slowly, too, across the sand, to where we waited for them, were Sarus and his men, chained, and bound and in throat coffle, stripped, shivering, Hura’s women. Near them, similarly bound and in throat coffle, though still in the skins of panther girls, were Verna’s women, who had been captured long ago by Sarus in Marlenus’ camp. Grenna, too, who had once been Hura’s lieutenant, whom I had captured in the forest, was bound in the same coffle. She wore the tatters of her white, woolen slave garment. Among the men, clad, too, like Verna’s women, in skins, were Marlenus’ own slave girls, those who had been brought to the forest by him, who, like the others, had been captured at his camp. Their limbs were not bound. About their throats, however, they wore the collar of their master.
Today the camp would be broken, the stockade destroyed.
I observed the retinue approaching me.
It would then be forgotten, what had taken place on this beach.
I could not move the left side of my body.
I watched Marlenus and his men, and the slaves, and captives, make their way toward me.
It was four days since the night of the stockade.
I had lain, in pain and fever, in my cabin, in the small stern castle of the Tesephone.
It had seemed that Sheera had cared for me, and that, in fitful wakings, I had seen her face, intent above mine, and felt her hand, and a warmth, and sponging at my side.
And I had cried out, and tried to rise, but strong hands, those of Rim and Arn, had pressed me back, holding me.
“Vella!” I had cried.
And they had pressed me back.
I should have a hiking trip, into the White Mountains of New Hampshire. I would wish to be alone.
Not in the arena of Tharna! I blocked the heavy yoke locked on Kron, the iron horns tearing at me. The shock coursed through my body, as might have the blow of a mountain on a mountain.
I heard the screams of the women.
They were Hura’s women.
I reach for my sword, but it was gone. My hand closed on nothing.
The grayish face of Pa-Kur, and the expressionless eyes, stared down into mine. I heard the locking in place of the cable of his crossbow.
“You are dead!” I cried to him. “You are dead!”
“Thurnock!” cried Sheera.
Then there was the roar of Thassa but not of Thassa but of the crowd in the Stadium of Tarns, in Ar.
“Gladius of Cos!” I heard cry. “Gladius of Cos!”
“On Ubar of the Skies,” I cried. “On! On!”
“Please, Captain,” said Thurnock. He was weeping.
I turned my head to one side. Lara was very beautiful. And Misk, the great disklike eyes luminous, peered down at me. His antennae, golden, with their fine sensory filaments, surveyed me. I reached up to touch them with the palms of my hands. “Let there be nest trust! Let there be friendship!” But I could not reach them, and Misk had turned, and delicately, on his posterior appendages, had vanished.
“Vella! “ I wept. “Vella!”
I would not open the blue envelope. I would not open it. I must not open it. The earth trembles with the coming of the herds of the Wagon Peoples. “Flee, Stranger, flee!” “They are coming!” “Give him paga,” said Thurnock.
And Sandra, in her vest of jewels, and bells, taunted me in the paga tavern in Port Kar.
I swilled paga.
“All hail Bosk, Admiral of Port Kar!” I rose drunkenly to my feet. Paga spilled from the cup. “All hail Bosk, Admiral of Port Kar!” Where was Midice, to share my triumph? “Vella!” I cried. “Love me!”
“Drink this,” said Arn. I swallowed the liquid, and lay back.
The wind had been cold, too, on the height of Ar’s cylinder of justice. And small Torm, in the blue robes of the scribe, lifted his cup, to salute the beauty of Talena.
“You are denied bread, and fire and salt,” said Marlenus. “By sundown you are not to be within the realm of Ar.” “Victory is ours!” “Let us hunt, tumits,” suggested Kamchak. “I am weary of affairs of state.” Harold was already in his saddle.
I drew on the one-strap of Ubar of the Skies, and the great bird, giant and predator, screamed and together, we thrust higher into the bright, sunlit skies of Gor.
I stood at the edge of the cylinder of justice of Ar and looked down. Pa-Kur had leaped from its height. The sheerness of the fall was broken only by a tarn perch, some feet below.
I could see crowds milling at the foot of the cylinder.
The body of the master of the assassins had never been recovered. Doubtless it had been torn to pieces by the crowd.
In Ar, years earlier, Mip behind me, late at night, I walked out upon a tarn perch, and surveyed the beauties of the lamps of Ar, glorious Ar. I had looked up and seen, several feet above me, the height of the cylinder. It would be possible, though dangerous to leap to the perch.
I had thought little of it.
Pa-Kur was dead.
“Was the body recovered?” asked Kamchak.
“No,” I had told him. “It does not matter.”
I threw back my head and laughed.
Sheera wept.
“Put more furs upon him,” said Arn. “Keep him warm.”
I recalled Elizabeth Caldwell.
He who had examined her on Earth, to determine her fitness for the message collar, had frightened her. His clothes did not seem right upon him. his accent was strange. He was large, strong-handed. She had said his face was grayish, and his eyes like glass.
Saphrar, a merchant of Tyros, resplendent in Turia, had similarly described the man who had enlisted his services in behalf of those who contested worlds with Priest-Kings. He had been a large man. His complexion had not seemed as one of Earth. It had seemed grayish. His eyes had been expressionless, like stones, or orbs of glass.
Pa_Kur stared down upon me. I heard the locking in place of the cable of his crossbow.
“Pa-Kur is alive!” I screamed, rising up, throwing aside the furs. “He is alive! Alive!” I was pressed back.
“Rest, Captain,” said Thurnock.
I opened my eyes and the cabin, blurred, took shape. What had seemed a dim sun, a flame of darkness, became a ship’s lantern, swinging on its iron ring. “Vella?” I asked.
“The fever is broken,” said Sheera, her hand on my forehead.
I felt the furs drawn about me. There were tears in Sheera’s eyes. I had thought she had escaped. My collar still encircled her throat. She wore a tunic of white wool, clean.
“Rest, sweet Bosk of Port Kar,” said she.
“Rest, Captain,” whispered Thurnock.
I closed my eyes, and fell asleep.
“Greetings, Bosk of Port Kar,” said Marlenus of Ar.
He stood before me, his men behind him. he wore the yellow of Tyros, and, about his shoulders, a cloak, formed of panther skins. About his throat was a tangle of leather and claws, taken from panther women, with which he had adorned himself. His head was bare.
“Greetings, Marlenus,” said I, “Ubar of Ar.”
Together we turned to face the forest, and waited. In a moment, from the trees, emerged Hura.
Her hands were tied, by her long black hair, behind the back of her neck. Her hair had been twisted about her throat, knotted, and then, with the two loose strands, thick, themselves twisted, looped about her wrists, her hands had been secured. She was stripped. She wore a branch shackle, a thick, rounded branch, some eighteen
