Raiders of Gor

8 What Occurred in the Marshes

I had gathered the rence and Telima, with marsh vines, and her strong hands and skill, had made the craft.

While she worked I examined my weapons.

She had concealed them in the rence, far from her hut, weaving the reeds again over them. They had been protected.

I had again my sword, that wine-tempered blade of fine, double-edged Gorean steel, carried even at the siege of Ar, so long ago, with its scabbard; and the rounded shield of layered boskhide, with its double sling, riveted with pets of iron and bound with hoops of brass; and the simple helmet, innocent of insignia, with empty crest plate, of curved iron with its "Y"-like opening, and cushioned with rolls of leather. I had even, folded and stained from the salt of the marsh, the warrior's tunic, which had been taken from me even in the marsh, before I had been brought bound before Ho-Hak on the island.

And there was, too, the great bow, of yellow, supple Ka-la-na, tipped with notched bosk horn, with its cord of hemp, whipped with silk, and the roll of sheaf and flight arrows.

I counted the arrows. There were seventy arrowns, fifty of which were sheaf arrows, twenty flight arrows. The Gorean sheaf arrow is slightly over a yard long, the flight arrow is about forty inches in length. Both are metal piled and fletched with three half-feathers, from the wings of the Vosk gulls. Mixed in with the arrows were the leather tab, with its two openings for the right forefinger and the middle finger, and the leather bracer, to shield the left forearm from the flashing string.

I had told Telima to make the rence craft sturdy, wider than usual, stabler. I was not a rencer and, when possible, when using the bow, I intended to stand; indeed, it is difficult to draw a bow cleanly in any but a standing position; it is not the small, straight bow used in hunting light game, Tabuk, slaves and such.

I was pleased with the craft, and, not more than an Ahn after we returned to the island from our concealment in the marsh, Telima poled us away from its shore, setting out course in the wake of the narrow, high-prowed marsh barges of the slavers of Port Kar.

The arrows lay before me, loose in the leather wrapper opened before me on the reeds of the rence craft.

In my hand was the great bow. I had not yet strung it.

The oar-master of the sixth barge was doubtless angry. He had had to stop calling his time.

The barges in line before him, too, had slowed, then stopped, their oars half inboard, waiting.

It is sometimes difficult for even a small rence craft to make its way through the tangles of rushes and sedge in the delta.

A punt, from the flagship, moved ahead. Two slaves stook aft in the small, square-ended, flat-bottomed boat, poling. Two other slaves stood forward with glaves, lighter poles, bladed, with which they cut a path for the following barges. That path must needs be wide enough for the beam of the barges, and the width of the stroke of the oars.

The sixth barge began to drift to leeward, a slow half circle, aimless, like a finger drawing in the water.

The oar-master cried out angrily and turned to the helmsman, he who held the tiller beam.

The helmsman stood at the tiller, not moving. He had removed his helmet in the noon heat of the delta. Insects, undistracted, hovered about his head, moving in his hair.

The oar-master, crying out, leaped up the stairs to the tiller deck, and angrily seized the helmsman bu the shoulders, shaking him, then saw his eyes. He released the man, who fell from the tiller.

The oar-master cried out in fear, summoning warriors who gathered on the tiller deck.

The arrow from the great yellow bow, that of supple Ka-la-na, had passed through the head of the man, losing itself a hundred yards distant, dropping unseen into the marsh.

I do not think the men of Port Kar, at this time, realized the nature of the weapon that had slain their helmsman.

The knew only that he had been alive, and then dead, and that his head now bore two unaccountable wounds, deep, opposed, centerless circles, each mounted at the scarlet apex of a stained triangle.

Uncertain, fearing, they looked about.

The marsh was quiet, They heard only, from somewhere, far off, the piping cry of a marsh gant.

Silently, swiftly, with the stamina and skill of the rence girl, Telima, unerringly taking advantage of every break in the marsh growth, never making a false thrust or motion, brought our small craft soon into the vicinity of the heavy, slowed barges, hampered not only by their weight but by the natural impediments of the marsh. I marveled at her, as she moved the craft, keeping us constantly moving, yet concealed behind high thickets of rush and sedge. At times we were but yards from the barges. I could hear the creak of the oars in the thole ports, hear the calling of the oar-master, the conversation of warriors at their leisure, the moans of bound slaves, soon silenced with the lash and blows.

Telima poled us skillfuly about a large, floating tangle of marsh vine, it shifting with the movements of the marsh water.

We passed the fifth barge, and the fourth and third. I heard the shouts being passed from barge to barge, the confusion.

Soon, shielded by rushes and sedge, we had the first of the narrow, high-prowed barges abeam. This was their flagship. The warriors in the craft, climbing on the rowing benches, were crowed amidships and aft, even on the tiller deck, looking back at the barge line behind them, trying to make out the shouting, the confusion. Some of the slaves, chained at their benches, were trying to stand and see what might be the matter. On the small foredeck of the barge, beneath the high, curved prow, stood the officer and Henrak, both looking aft. The officer, angrily, was shouting the length of the barge to its oar-master, who now stood on the tiller deck, looking back toward the other barges, his hands on the sternrail. On the high, curved prow, to which was bound, naked, the lithe, darkhaired girl, there stood a lookout, he, too, looking backward, shielding his eyes. Below the prow, in the marsh water, the slaves in the punt stopped cutting at the sedge and marsh vine that blocked their way.

I stood in the small craft, shielded by rushes and sedge. My feet were spread; my heels were aligned with the target; my head was sharply turned to my left; I drew the sheaf arrow to its pile, until the three half-feathers of the Vosk gull lay at my jawbone; I took breath and then held it, sighting over the pile; there must be no movement; then I released the string.

The shaft, at the distance, passed completely through his body, flashing beyond him and vanishing among the rushes and sedges in the distance.

The man himself did not cry out but the girl, bound near him, screamed. There was a splash in the water.

The slaves standing in the punt, the two with their poles, the other two with their glaves, cried out in fear. I heard a thrashing in the water on the other side of the barge, the hoarse grunting of a suddenly emerged marsh tharlarion. The man had not cried out. Doubtless he have been dead before he struck the water. The girl bound to the prow, however, startled, hysterical, seeing the tumult of the tharlarion below her, each tearing for a part of the unexpected prize, began to scream uncontrollably. The slaves in the punt, too, striking down with their glaves, shoving away tharlarion, began to cry out. There was much shouting. The officer, bearded and tall, with the two golden slashes on the temples of his helmet, followed by Henrak, still with the scarf bound about his body, ran to the rail. Telima, silently, poled us back further among the rushes, skillfully turning the small craft and moving again toward the last barge. As we silently moved among the growths of the marsh we heard the wild cries of men, and the screaming of the girl bound to the prow, until, by a whi[slave, she was lashed to silence.

"Cut! Cut! Cut!" I heard the officer cry out to the slaves in the punt and, immediately, almost frenzied, they began to hack away at the tangles of marsh vine with their bladed poles.

Throughout the afternoon and evening, unhurried, Telima and I, like a prowling sleen, circled the barges, and, when it pleased us, loosed another of the long shafts of the great bow.

I struck first their helmsman, and soon none would ascend to the tiller deck. Then warriors climbed down to punt, to help the slaves cut marsh vine and sedge, to clear the way, but these warriors, exposed, fell easy prey to the birds of the bow. Then more slaves were put in the punt, and ordered to cut, and cut more.

And when some growth had been cleared and an oar-master would dare to take his seat to call the time for the rowers he, too, like the helmsmen, would taste in his heart the touch of the metal-piled shaft.

And then none would dare take the place of the oar-master.

As darkness fell in the marsh the men of Port Kar lit torches on the sides of the barges.

But by the light of these torches the great bow found the enjoyment of various victories.

Then the torches were extinguisehd and, in the darkness, fearing, the men of Port kar waited.

We had struck from various sides, at various times. And Telima had often raised the piping cry of the marsh gant. The men of Port Kar knew, as I had not, that rencers communicate in the marshes by the means of such signals. The face, delightful to me, taht Telima's skill was such that actuall marsh gants frequently responded to her cries was, I expect, less delightful to those of Port Kar. In the darkness, peering out, not seeing, they had no way of knowing which was a marsh gant and which an enemy. For all they knew, they were encirclesd by rencers, somehow masters of the great bow, That the great bow was used they understood from the time I struck the second helmsman, pinning him to the tiller beam.

Occassionally they would fire back, and the bolts of crossbows would drop into the marshes about us, but harmlessly. Usually they fell far wide of our true positon, for, following each of my fired shafts, Telima would pole us to a new point of vantage, whence I might again, when ready, pick a target and loose yet another of the winged shafts. Sometimes merely the movement of a tharlarion or the flutter of a marsh gant, something completely unrelated to us, would summon a great falling and hissing of bolts into the marsh.

In the darkness, Telima and I finished some rence cake we had brought from the island, and drank some water.

"How may arrows have you left?" she asked.

"Ten," I said.

"It is not enough," she said.

"That is true," I said, "but now we have the cover of darkness."

I had cut some marsh vine and had, from this formed a loop.

"What can you do?" she asked.

"Pole me to the fourth barge," I said.

We had estimated that there had been more than a hundred warriors on the six barges, but not, perhaps, many more. Counting the kills, and other men we had seen, the barges' hulls, there might be some fifty men left, spread over the six barges.

Silently Telima poled our small craft to the fourth barge.

The most of the warriors, we had noted, were concentrated in the first and last barges.

The barges, during the afternoon, had been eased into a closer line, the stem on one lying abeam of the stern of the next, being made fast tehre by lines. This was to prevent given barges from being boarded separately, where the warriors on one could not come to the aid of the other. They had no way of knowing how many rencers might be in the marshes. With this arrangement they had greater mobility of their forces, for men might leap, say, from one foredeck of one barge to the tiller deck of the other. If boarding were attepmpted toward the center of the line, the boarding party could thus be crushed on both flanks by warriors pouring in from adjacent barges. This arrangement, in effect, transformed the formerly purposes, a long, single, narrow, wooden-walled fort.

These defensive conditons dictated that the offense, putatively the male population of one or perhaps two rence communities, say, some seventy or eighty men, would most likely attack at either of the first or the last of the barges, where they would have but one front on which to attack and little, or nothing, to fear from the rear. That the punt might be used to bring men behind attacking rencers was quite improbable; further, had it been used, pressumably it would have encountered rencers in their several rence craft and been threby neutralized or destroyed.

In this situation, then, it was natural, expecting an attack on either the first or the last barge, that the officer, he of the golden slashes on the temples of his helmet, would concentrate his men in the first and last barge.

We had come now to the hull of the fourth barge, and we had come to her as silently as a rence flower might have drifted to her side.

Having no large number of men at my disposal, it seemed best to me to let the men of Port Kar themselves do most of my fighting.

Standing below the hull, quite close, in the shifting rence craft, I made a small clicking noise, a sound that meant nothing but, in the darkness, meaning nothing, would be startling, terrifying in its uncomprehended import. I heard the sudden intake of breath which marked the position of a man. With the noose of marsh vine I dragged him over the sie of the hull, lowering him into the marsh, holding him until I felt the tharlarion take him from me, drawing him away.

Slaves chained at the benches began to cry out with fear.

I heard men running, from both sides toward the place from which came the cries of the slaves.

In the darkness they met one another, shouting, brandishing their weapons. There was much shouting.

Someone was calling for a torch.

Telima poled us backward, away from the hull of the fourth barge.

I picked up the bow and set it its string one of the ten remaining arrows. When the torch first flickered I put the arrow into the heart of the man who held it, and he and the torch, as though struck by a fist, spun and reeled off the far side of the barge. I then heard another man cry out, thrust in the confustion over the side, and his screaming. There was more shouting. There were more cries for torches, but I did not see any lit.

And then I heard the clash of sword steel, wildly, blindly.

And then I heard one cry out "They are aboard! We are boarded! Fight!" Telima had poled us some thirty yards out into the marsh, and I stood there, arrow to string, in case any should bring another torch.

None did.

I heard men running on the gangway between the rowers' benches.

I heard more cries of pain, the screams of terrified slaves trying to crawl beneath their benches.

There was another splash.

I heard someone crying out, perhaps the officer, ordering more men aft to repell the boarders.

From the other direction I heard another voice ordering me forward, commanding his warriors to take the boarders in the flank.

I whispered to Telima to bring the rence craft in again, and put down my bow, taking out the steel sword. Again at the side of the fourth barge I thrust over the side, driving my blade into one of the milling bodies, then withdrawing. There were more cries and clashings of steel.

Again and again, on the fourth and the third barges, on one side and then the other, we did this, each time returning to the marsh and waiting with bow. When it seemed to me there was enough screaming and cursing on the barges, enough clashing of weapons and cries, I said to Telima, "It is now time to sleep."

She seemed startled but, as I told her, poled the rence craft away from the barges.

I unstrung the bow.

When the rence craft was lost, some hundred yards from the barges, among the reeds and sedge, I had her secure the craft. She thrust the oar-pole deep into the mud of the marsh, and fastened the rence craft to this mooring by a length of marsh vine.

In the darkness I felt her kneel on the reeds of the rence craft.

"How can you sleep now?" she said.

We listened to the shouts and cries, the clash of weapons, the screams, carrying to us over the calm waters of the marsh.

"It is time to sleep," I told her. Then I said to her, "Approach me." She hesitated, but then she did. I took a length of marsh vine and bound her wrists behind her back, and then, with another bit of marsh vine, crossed and bound her ankles. Then I placed her lengthwise in the craft, her head at the up-cruved stern end of the vessel. With a last length of marsh vine, doubled and looped about her throat, its free ends tied about the up-curved stern, I secured her in place.

She, an intelligent, and proud girl, understanding the intention of these precautions, neither questioned me nor protested them. She was bound and secured in complete silence.

I myself was bitter.

I, Tarl Cabot, hating myself, no longer respected or trusted human beings. I had done what I had done that day for the sake of a child, one who had once been kind to me, but who no longer existed. I knew myself for one who had chosen ignominious slavery over the freedom of honorable death. I knew myself as coward. I had betrayed my codes. I had tasted humiliation and degradation, and most at my own hands, for I had been most by myself betrayed. I could no longer see myself as I had been. I had been a boy and now I had come to the seeings of manhood, and found within myself, disgusting me, something capable of cowardice, self-indulgence, selfishness, and cruelty. I was no longer worthy of the red of the warrior, no longer worthy of serving the Home Stone of my city, Ko-ro-ba, the Towers of the Morning; it seemed to me then that there were only winds and strengths, and the motions of bodies, the falling of rain, the movements of bacilli, the beating of hearts and the stopping of such beatings. I found myself alone.

And then, hearing still the cries, the alarms in the night, I fell asleep. My last thought before the sweet darkness of sleep was the remembrance that I was on who had chosen ignominious slavery to the freedom of honorable death, and that I was alone.

I awakened stiff in the cold of the marsh dawn, hearing the movement of the wind through the dim sedges, the cries of an occasional marsh gant darting among the rushes. Somewhere in the distance I heard the grunting of tharlarion. High overhead, passing, I heard the squeals of four UIs, beating their way eastward on webbed, scaled wings. I lay there for a time, feeling the rence beneath my back, staring up a the gray, empty sky.

Then I crawled to my knees.

Telima was awake, by lay, of cours, where I had left her, bound.

I untied the girl and she, not speaking, painfully stretched, and rubbed her wrists and ankles. I gave her half of the food and water that we had left and, in silence, we ate.

She wiped the last of the crumbs of rence cake from her mouth with the back of her left hand. "You have only nine arrows left," she said.

"I do not think it matters," I said.

She looked at me, puzzled.

"Pole us to the barges," I said.

She unfastened the rence craft from the oar-pole which had served as a mooring and, slowly, drew up the pole from the mud of the marsh.

Then she poled us to the vicinity of the barges. They seemed lonely and gray in the morning light. Always keeping us shielded by thickets of rush and sedge, she circled the six barges, fastened together.

We waited for an Ahn or so and then I told her to move ot the sixth barge. I restrung the great bow, and put the nine arrows in my belt. In my scabbard was the short sword, carried even at the siege of Ar.

Very slowly we approached, almost drifting, the high, carved sternpost of the sixth barge.

We remained beneath it for several Ehn. Then, silently, I motioned Telima to scraped the oar-pole on the side of the barge, just touching the planks. She did so.

There was no response.

I then took the helmet from my things on the rence craft, that without insignia, with empty crest plate, and lifted it until it cleared the side of the barge. Nothing happened. I heard nothing.

I had Telima pole us back away from the barge and I stood regarding it, for some Ehn, the great bow quarter-drawn, arrow in string.

Then I motioned for her, silently, to move abeam of the prow of the sixth barge. There was a girl, naked, miserable, bound to the prow, but, tied as she was, she could not turn to see us. I do not even think she was aware of our presence. I put the bow back on the reeds of the rence craft, and removed the arrows from my belt.

I did not take up the shield for in climbing in would have encumbered me. I did place over my features the curved helmet, with its "Y"-like opening, of the Gorean warrior.

Then, slowly, making no sound, I lifted no more than my eyes over the side of the barge, and scanned the interior. Shielding myself from the fifth barge by the back of the prow of the sixth I climbed aboard. I looked about. I was its master.

"Make no sound," I said to the girl at the prow.

She almost cried out, terrified, and struggled to turn and see who stood behind her, but could not, bound, do so.

She was silent.

Slaves, chained at the benches, haggard, wild-eyed, looked up at me. "Be silent," said I to them.

There was only a rustle of chain.

The slaves from the rence islands, lying between the rowers' benches, like fish, bound hand and foot, had their heads to the stern of the vessel.

"Who is there?" asked one.

"Be silent," I said.

I looked over the side to Telima, and indicated that she should had me my shield, and, with difficulty, she did so.

I looked about more. Then I placed the shield by the rail, and extended my hand for the great bow, with its nine arrows.

Telima gave them to me.

Then I motioned that she should come aboard and, tying the rence craft fast to the small mooring cleat just abaft of the prow, she did so.

She now stood beside me on the foredeck of the sixth barge.

"The punt is gone," she said.

I did not respond to her. I had seen that the punt had been gone. Why else would I have come as early as I had to the barges?

I unstrung the great bow and handed it, with its arrows, to Telima. I took up my shield. "Follow me," I told her.

I knew she could not string the bow. I knew, further, that she could not, even were the weapon strung, draw it to the half, but further I knew that, at the range she might fire, the arrow, drawn even to the quarter, might penetrate my back. Accordingly she would follow me bearing the weapon unstrung.

I looked upon her, evenly and for a long time, but she did not drop her head, but met my gaze fully, and fearlessly.

I turned.

There were no men of Port Kar on the sixh barge, but, as I stepped from the foredeck of the sixth barge to the tiller deck of the fifth, I saw some of their bodies. In some were the arrows of the great bow. But many had apparently died of wounds inflicted with spear and sword. A number of others had doubtless been, in the darkness and confusion thrust overboard.

I indicated those who had met the arrows of the great bow.

"Get the arrows," I told Telima.

I had used simple-pile arrows, which may be withdrawn from the wound. The simple pile gives greater penetration. Had I used a broad-headed arrow, or the Tuchuk barbed arrow, one would, in removing it, commonly thrust the arrow completely through the wound, drawing it out feathers last. One is, accordingly, in such cases, less likely to lose the point in the body.

Telima, one by one, as we passed those that had fallen to the great bow, drew from their bodies the arrows, adding them to those she carried.

And so I, with my shield and sword, helmeted, followed by Telima, a rence girl, carrying the great bow, with its arrows, may of them now bloodied, taken from the bodies on those of Port Kar, moved from barge to barge.

On none of them did we find a living man of Port Kar.

Those that had lived had doubtless fled in the punt. In the darkness, presumably, they had seixed upon it and, either amidst the shouting and the blind fighting, or perhaps afterwards, in a terrifying quiet, the prelude perhaps to yet another putative attack, had climbed over the side and, poling away desperately, had made their escape, It was also possible that they had eventually realized that boarders were not among them or, if they had been, were no longer, but they did not wish to remain trapped in the marsh, to fall victim to thirts, or the string-flung arrows of the yellow bow. I supposed the punt could not carry many men, perhaps eight or ten, if dangerously crowded. I was not much concerned with how those of Port kar had determined who would passenger on the fugitive vessel. I expected that some of those dead on the barges had been, by their own kind, denied such a place.

We now stood on the foredeck of the first barge.

"They are all dead," said Telima, her voice almost breaking. "They are all dead!"

"Go to the tiller deck," I told her.

She went, carrying the great bow, with its arrows.

I stood on the foredeck, looking out over the marsh.

Above me, her back to the front of the curved prow of the barge, was bound the lithe, dark-haired girl, who I well remembered, she who had been so marvelously legged in the brief rence tunic. She was curved over the prow nude, her wrists cruelly bound behind it, and was further held tightly in place by binding fiber at her ankles, her stomach and throat. I recalled I had been bound rather similarly at the pole, when she had danced her contempt of me.

"Please," she begged, trying to turn her head, "who is it?"

I did not answer her, but turned, and left the foredeck, walking back along the gangway between the rowers' benches. She heard my footsteps retreating. The slaves at the benches did not stir as I passed between them.

I acended the steps of the tiller deck.

There I looked down into Telima's eyes.

She looked up at me, joy on her face. "Thank you, Warrior," she whispered. "Bring me binding fiber," I said.

She looked at me.

I indicated a coil of binding fiber that lay near the foot of the rail, below the tiller deck, on my left.

She put down the great bow, with its arrows, on the tiller deck. She brought me the coil of binding fiber.

I cut three lengths.

"Turn and cross your wrists," I told her.

With the first length of binding fiber I tied her wrists behind her; I then carried her and placed her, on her knees, on the second of the broad steps leading up to the tiller deck, two steps below that in which I fixed the chair of the oar-master; she now knelt below that chair, and it its left; there, with the second length of fiber, I tied together her ankles; with the third length I ran a leash from her throat to the mooring cleat on the aft larboard side of the barge, that some five yards forward of the sternpost.

I then sat down cross-legged on the tiller deck. I counted the arrows. I now had twenty-five. Several of the warriors struck by the arrows had plunged into the water; others had been thrown overboard by their fellows. Of the twenty-five, eighteen were sheaf arrows and the remaining seven were flight arrows. I put the bow beside me, and laid the arrows out on hte planking of the tiller deck. I then rose to my feet and began to make my way, barge by barge, to the sixth barge.

Again the slaves, chained at their benches, facing the stern of each barge, did not so much as move as I passed among them.

"Give me water," whispered a bound rencer.

I continued on my way.

As, I walked from barge to barge I passed, at each prow, tied above my head, a bound, nude girl. On the second prow of the six barges, only a few feet from the tiller dec of the first barge, it had been the tall, gray-eyed girl, who had held marsh vine against my arm, she who had danced with such secruciating slowness before me at the pole. On the third prow it had been the shorter, dark-haired girl, she who had carried the net over her left shoulder. I remembered that she, too, had dnaced before me, and, as had the others, spit upon me.

Bound as they were to the curved prows of the barges these captives could see only the sky over the marsh. They could hear only my footsteps passing beneath them, and perhaps the small movement of the Gorean blad in its sheath. As I walked back, from barge to barge, I walked as well among bound rencers, heaped and tied like fish among the benches of slaves.

I wore the heavy Gorean helmet, concealing my features. None recognized the warrior who walked among them. The helmet bore no insignia. Its crest plate was empty.

No one spoke. I heard not even the ratle of a chain. I heard only my footsteps, and the occasional sounds of the morning in the marsh, and the movement of the Gorean blade in my sheath.

When I reached the tiller deck of the sixth barge I looked back, surveying the barges.

They were mine now.

Somewhere I heard a child crying.

I went forward to the foredeck of the sixth barge and there freed the rence craft of its tether to the mooring cleat and climbed over the side, dropping into the small craft. I pulled the oar-pole from the mud at its side, and then, standing on the wide, sturdy little craft which Telima had fashioned from the rence I had gathered, I poled my way back to the first barge.

The slaves, those at the benches, and those who lay bound between them, as I passed the barges, were silent.

I refastened the rence craft at the first barge, to the starboard mooring cleat just abaft of the prow.

I then climbed aboard and walked back to the tiller deck, where I took my seat on the chair of the oar-master.

Telima, haltered, bound hand and foot, kneeling on the second broad step on the stairs leading up to the tiller deck, looked up at me.

"I hate rencers," I told her.

"Is that why you have saved them," she asked, "from the men of Port Kar?" I looked at her in fury.

"There was a child," I said, "one who was once kind to me."

"You have done all this," she asked, "because a child was once kind to you?" "Yes," I said.

"And yet now," she said, "you are being cruel to a child, one who is bound and hungry, or thirsty."

It was true. I could hear a child crying. I now could place that the sound came from the second barge.

I rose from the chair of the oar-master, angrily. "I have you all," I told her, "and the slaves at the benches as well! If I wish, I will take you all to Port Kar, as you are, and sell you. I am on man armed and strong among many chained and bound. I am master here!"

"The child," she said, "is bound. It is in pain. It is doubtless thirsty and hungry."

I turned and made my way to the second barge. I found the child, a boy, perhaps of five years of age, blond like many of the rencers, and blue-eyed. I cut him free, and took him in my arms.

I found his mother and cut her free, telling her to feed the child and give water to it.

She did, and then I ordered them both back to the tiller deck of the first barge, making them stand on hte rowing deck, below the steps of the tiller deck, to my left near the rail, where I might see them, where they might not, unnoticed, attempt to free others.

I sat again on the chair of the oar-master.

"Thank you," said Telima.

I did not deign ot respond to her.

In my heart there was hatred for the rencers, for they had made me slave. More than this they had been my teachers, who had brougth me to cruelly learn myself as I had no wish to know myself. They had cost me the concept that I had taken for my reality; they had torn from me a bright image, an illusion, precious and treasured, and unwarranted reflection of suppositions and wishes, not examined, which I had taken to be the truth of my identity. They had torn me from myself. I had begged to be a slave. I had chosen ignominious slavery over the freedom of honorable death. In the marshes of the delta of the Vosk I had lost Tarl Cabot. I had learned that I was, in my heart, of Port Kar.

I drew forth the Gorean blade from its scabbaord and, sitting on the chair of the oar-master, laid it across my knees.

"I am Ubar here," I said.

"Yes," said Telima, "here you are Ubar."

I looked down to the slave at the starboard side, he at the first thwart, who would be first oar.

As I, in the chair of oar-master, faced the bow of the vessel, he, as slave at the benches, faced its stern, and the chair of the oar-master, that which now served me as Ubar's throne, in this small wooden country lost in the marshes of the Vosk's delta.

We looked upon one another.

Both of his ankles were shackled to the beam running lengthwise of the ship and bolted to the deck; the chain on the shackles ran through the beam itself, through a circular hole cut in the beam and lined with an iron tube; the slaves behind him, as the beam, or beams, passed beneath their thwarts, were similarly secured. The arrangements for the slaves on the larboard side of the barge were, of course, identical.

The man was barefoot, and wore only a rag. His hair was tangled and matted; it had been shearted at the base of his neck. About his heck was hammered an iron collar.

"Master?" he asked.

I looked upon him for some time. And then I said, "How long have you been a slave?"

He looked at me, puzzled. "Six years," he said.

"What were you before?" I asked.

"An eel fisher," he said.

"What city?"

"The Isle of Cos," he said.

I looked to another man.

"What is your caste?" I asked.

"I am of the peasants," he said proudly. It was a large, broad man, with yellow, shaggy hair. His hair, too, was sheared at the base of his neck; he, too, wore a collar of hammered iron.

"Do you have a city?" I asked.

"I had a free holding," he said proudly.

"A Home Stone?" I asked.

"Mine own," he said, "I my hut."

"Near what city," I asked, "did your holding lie?"

"Near Ar," said he.

I looked out, over the marsh. Then I again regarded the eel fisher, who was first oar.

"Were you a good fisherman?" I asked.

"Yes," he said. "I was."

Again I regarded the yellow-haired giant, of the peasants.

"Where is the key to your shackles kept?" I asked.

"It hangs," said he, "in the arm of the chair of the oar-master."

I examined the broad arm of the chair, and, in the the right arm, I found a sliding piece of wood, which I slid forward, it extending beyond the chair arm. Inside was a cavity, containing some rags, and binding fiber, and, on a hook, a heavy metal key.

I took the key and unlocked teh shackles of the eel fisher and the peasant. "You are free men," I told them.

They did not get up for a long timem but sat there, looking at me.

"You are free men," I said, "no longer slaves."

Suddenly, with a great laugh, the yellow-haired giant, the peasant, leaped to his feet. He struck himself on the chest. "I am Thurnock!" he cried. "Of the Peasants!"

"You are, I expect," I said, "a master of the great bow."

"Turnock," he said, "draws a great bow well."

"I knew it would be so," said I.

The other man had now stood easily, stepping from the bench.

"My name is Clitus," he said. "I am a fisherman. I can guide ships by the stars. I know the net and trident."

"You are free," I said.

"I am your man," cried the giant.

"I, too," said the fisherman. "I, too, am your man."

"Find among the bound slaves, the rencers," I said, "the one who is called Ho-Hak."

"We shall," said they.

"And bring him before me," I said.

"We shall," said they.

I would hold court.

Telima, kneeling bound below me, on the left, the binding fiber on her throat, tethered to the mooring cleat, looked up at me. "What will be the pleasure of my Ubar with his captives?" she asked.

"I will sell you all in Port Kar," I said.

She smiled. "Of course," she said, "you may do what you please with us." I looked upon her in fury. I held the blade of the short sword at her throat. Her head was up. She did not flinch.

"Do I so displease my Ubar?" she asked.

I slammed the blade back in the sheath.

I seized her by the arms and lifted her, bound, to face me. I looked down into her eyes. "I could kill you," I said. "I hate you." How could I tell her that it had been by her instrumentality that I had been destroyed in the marshes. I felt myself suddenly transformed with utter fury. It was she who had done this to me, who had cost me myself, teaching me my ignobility and my cowardice, who had broken the image, casting it into the mud of the marsh, that I had for so many years, so foolishly, taken as the substance and truth of my own person. I had been emptied; I was now a void, into which I could feel the pourings, the dark flowings, of resentment and degradation, of bitterness and self-recrimination, of self-hatred. "You have destroyed me!" I hissed to her, and flung her from me down the steps of the tiller deck. The woman with the child screamed, and the boy cried out. Telima rolled and then, jerked up short, half choked, by the tether, sha lay at the foot of the stairs. She struggled again to her knees. There were now tears in her eyes.

She looked up at me. She shook her head. "You have not been destroyed," said she, "my Ubar."

Angrily I took again my seat on the chair of the oar-master.

"If any has been destroyed," said she, "it was surely I."

"Do not speak foolishly," I commanded her, angrily. "Be silent!"

She dropped her head. "I am at the pleasure of my Ubar," she said.

I was ashamed that I had been brutal with her, but I would not show it. I knew, in my heart, that it had been I, I myself, who had betrayed me, I who had fallen short of the warrior codes, I who had dishonored my own Home Stone, and the blade I bore. It was I who was guilty. Not she. But everything in me cried out to blame some other for the treacheries and the defections that were my own. And surely she had most degraded me of all. Surely, of all, she had been the most cruel, the one before whom I had groveled most slave. It was in my mouth, black and swollen, that she had put the kiss of the Mistress.

I dismissed her from my mind.

Thurnock, the peasant, and Clitus, the fisherman, approached, holding between them Ho-Hak, bound hand and foot, the heavy collar of the galley slave, with its dangling chain, still riveted about his neck.

They placed him on his knees, on the rowing deck, before me.

I removed my helmet.

"I knew it would be you," he said.

I did not speak.

"There were more than a hundred men," said Ho-hak.

"You fought well, Ho-hak," said I, "on the rence island, with only an oar-pole." "Not well enough," said he. He looked up at me, from his bonds. His great ears leaned a bit forward. "Were you alone?" he asked.

"No," I said. I nodded to Telima, who, head down, knelt at the foot of the stairs.

"You did well, Woman," said Ho-Hak.

She lifted her head, tears in her eyes. She smiled at him.

"Why is it," asked Ho-Hak, "that she who aided you kneels bound at your feet?" "I do not trust her," I said, "nor any of you."

"What are you going to do with us?" asked Ho-Hak.

"Do you not fear that I will throw you bound to the tharlarion?" I asked. "No," said Ho-Hak.

"You are a brave man," I said. I admired him, so calm and strong, though before me naked and bound, at my mercy.

Ho-Hak looked up at me. "It is not," he said, "that I am a particularly brave man. It is rather that I know you will not throw me to tharlarion." "How can you know that?" I asked.

"No man who fights a hundred," said he, "with only a girl at his side, could act so."

"I shall sell you all in Port Kar!" I cried.

"Perhaps," said Ho-Hak, "but I do not think so."

"But I have won you and your people, and all these slaves," I told him, "that I might have my vengeance on you, for making me slave, and come rich with cargo to Port Kar!"

"I expect that is not true," said Ho-Hak.

"He did it for Eechius," said Telima.

"Eechius was killed on the island," said Ho-Hak.

"Eechius had given him rence cake when he was bound at the pole," said Telima. "Ti was for him that he did this."

Ho-Hak looked at me. There were tears in his eyes. "I am grateful, Warrior," said he.

I did not understand his emotion.

"Take him away!" I ordered Thurnock and Clitus, and they dragged Ho-Hak from my presence, taking him back somewhere on the second barge, among other bound slaves.

I was angry.

Ho-Hak had not begged for mercy. He had not demeaned himself. He had shown himself a dozen times more man than me.

I hated rencers, and all men, saving perhaps the two who served me. Ho-Hak had been bred a slave, a degraded and distorted exotic, and had served even in the darkness of the stinking rowing holds of cargo vessels of Port Kar, and yet, before me, he had shown himself a dozen times more man than me. I hated him, and rencers.

I looked at the slaves chained at the benches. Any of them, in rags sheared and shackled, beaten and half-starved, was greater than I.

I was no longer worthy of the love of two women I had know, Talena, who had once foolishly consented to be the Free Companion of one now proved to be ignoble and coward, and Vella, Elizabeth Cardwell, once of Earth, who had mistakenly granted her love to one worthy raother only of her contempt and scorn. And, too, I was no longer worthy of the respect of my father, Matthew Cabor, Administrator of Ko-ro-ba, and of my teacher at arms, the Older Tarl, nor of he who had been my small friend, Torm, the Scribe. I could never again face those I had known, Kron of Tharna, Andreas of Tor, Kamchak of the Tuchuks, Relius and Ho-Sorl of Ar, none of them. All would despise me now.

I looked down on Telima.

"What will you do with us, my Ubar?" she asked.

Did she mock me?

"You have taught me," I said, "that I am of Port Kar."

"You have perhaps, my Ubar," said she, "misunderstood the lesson."

"Be silent!" I cried.

She put down her head. "If any here," she said, "is of Port Kar, it is surely Telima."

Furious at her mockerly I leaped from the chair of the oar-master and struck her with the back of my hand, snapping her head to one side.

I felt shamed, agonized, but I would show nothing.

I returned to my seat.

There was a streak of blood across her face where her lip had been cut by her teeth.

She put down her head again. "If any," she whispered, "surely Telima." "Be silent!" I cried.

She looked up. "Telima," she whispered, "is at her Ubar's pleasure." I looked at Thurnock and Clitus.

"I am going to Port Kar," I said.

Thurnock crossed his great arms on his chest, and nodded his head. Clitus, too, gave assent to this.

"You are free men," I said. "You need not accompany me."

"I," said Thurnock, in a booming voice, "would follow you even to the Cities of Dust."

"And I," said Clitus, "I, too."

Thurnock was blue-eyed, Clitus gray-eyed. Thurnock was a huge man, with arms like the oars of the great galleys; Clitus was slighter, but he had been first oar; he would have great strength, beyond what it might seem.

"Build a raft," I said, "large enough for food and water, and more than two men, and what we might find here that we might wish to take with us."

They set about their work.

I sat, alone, on the great chair of the oar-master. I put my head in my hands. I was Ubar here, but I found the throne a bitter one. I would have exchanged it all for Tarl Cabot, the myth, and the dream, that had been taken from me. When I raised my head from my hands I felt hard and cruel.

I was alone, but I had my arm, and its strength, and the Gorean blade. Here, on this wooden land lost in the delta marshes, I was Ubar.

I knew now, as I had not before, what men were. I had in misery learned this in myself. And I now saw myself a fool for having espoused codes, for having set above myself ideals.

What could there be that could stand above the steel blade?

Was not honor a sham, loyalty and courage a deceit, an illusion of the ignorant, a dream of fools?

Was not the only wise man he who observed carefully and when he might took what he could?

The determinants of the wise man could not be such phantoms.

There was only gold, and power, and the bodies of women, and steel. I was a strong man.

I was such that might make a place for himself in a city such as Port Kar. "The raft is ready," said Thurnock, his body gleaming sweat, wiping a great forearm across his face.

"We found food and water," said Clitus, "and some weapons, and gold." "Good," I said.

"There is much rence paper," said Thurnock. "Did you want us to put some on board?"

"No," I said. "I do not want rence paper."

"What of slaves?" asked Thurnock.

I looked to the prow of the first barge, where was bound the lithe, dark-haired beauty, she who had been so marvelously legged in the brief rence tunic. Then I looked to the second prow, and the third, where were tied the large girl, blond and gray-eyed, who had held marsh vine against my arm, and the shorter girl, dark-haired, who had carried a net over her left shoulder. These had danced their insolence, their contempt of me. They had spat upon me, when I had been bound helpless, and then whirled away laughing into the circle of the dance. I laughed.

They had earned for themselves the chains and brands of slave girls. Thurnock and Clitus regarded me.

"Bring the girls at second and third prow," I told them.

A grin broke across the face of Thurnock. "They are beauties," he said, shaking that great shaggy head of yellow hair, sheared at the base of his neck. "Beauties!"

He and Clitus went to fetch the slaves.

I myself turned and walked slowly down the gangway between the rowers' benches, and then climbed the stairs to the foredec of the barge.

The girl, her back bound over the curved prow, facing forward, heard me, but could not see me. My head, as I stood on the foredeck, was about a foot below her fastened ankles. Her wrists, facing me, had been bound cruelly behind the prow.

"Who is it?" she asked.

I said nothing.

"Please," she begged. "Who is it?"

"Be silent," said I, "Slave."

A small cry of anguish escaped her.

With a movement of the Gorean blade I cut the fiber at her ankles.

Then, standing on the rail of the foredeck, my left had on the prow, I cut first the fiber binding her at the throat, and then that binding her at the waist. Then, resheathing my sword, I eased her, wrists bound, down the prow, until her feet at last stood on the rail, on which, beside her, I stood.

I turned her about.

She saw me, the black, swollen mouth, the eyes, and screamed helplessly. "Yes," I said, "it is I."

Then, cruelly, I took her head in my hands and pressed my lips upon hers. Never had I seen a woman so overcome with utter terror.

I laughed at her misery.

Then, contempuously, I removed my blade from the sheath. I put the point under her chin, lifting her head. Once, when I had been bound at the pole, she had pushed up my head, that she might better assess the features of a slave. "You are a beauty, aren't you?" I commented.

Her eyes looked at me with terror.

I dropped the point to her throat, and she turned away her head, shutting her eyes. For a moment I let her feel the point in hte delicacy of her throat, then I dropped the blade and slashed the binding fiber that fastened her wrists together about the prow.

She fell to the foredeck, on her hands and knees.

She struggled to her feet, half crouching, half mad with fear, and the pain of being bound at the prow.

With the point of my blade I pointed to the deck.

She shook her head, and turned, and ran to the rail, and held it, looking over. A huge tharlarion, seeing the image on the water, half rose from the marsh, jaws clashingin, and then dropped back into the water. Two or three more tharlarion then churned there beneath her.

She threw back her head and screamed.

She turned to face me, shaking her head.

The tip of my blade still pointed inexorably to a place on the deck. "Please!" she wept.

The blade did not move.

She came and stood before me, and then dropped ot her knees, resting back on her heels. She lowered her head and extended her arms, wrists crossed, the submission of the Gorean female. I did not immediately bind her, but walked about her, examining her as prize. I had not hitherto understood her as so beautiful, and desirable. At last, after I had well stisfied myself as to her quality, I took a bit of binding fiber that had fastened her ankles at the prow, and lashed her wrists together.

She raised her head and looked up at me, her eyes searching mine, pleading. I spat down in her face, and she lowered her head, shoulders shaking, sobbing. I turned away and descended the foredeck, and returned between the slaves to the steps below the tiller deck.

The girl followed me, unbidded.

Once I turned, and saw that she wiped, with the back of her right wrist, my spittal from her face. She lowered her bound hands and stood on the planking, head down.

I took again my chair, that of the oar-master, in this domain.

The large, blond, gray-eyed girl and the shorter girl, dark-haired, who had carried the net, knelt before the chair on the rowing deck.

My girl then knelt to one side, head down.

I surveyed the two girls, the blond one and the shorter one, and looked to Thurnock and Clitus.

"Do you like them?" I asked.

"Beauties!" said Thurnock. "Beauties!"

The girls trembled.

"Yes," said Clitus, "though they are rence girls, they would bring a high price."

"Please!" said the blond girl.

I looked at Thurnock and Clitus. "They are yours." I said.

"Ha!" cried Turnock. And then he seized up a length of binding fiber. "Submit!" she boomed at the large, blond girl and, terrified, almost leaping, she lowered her head, thrusting forward her hands, wrists crossed. In an instant, with peasant knots, Thurnock had lashed them together. Clitus bent easily to pick up a length of binding fiber. He looked at the shorter girl, who looked up at him with hate. "Submit," he said to her, quietly. Sullenly, she did so. Then, startled, she looked up at him, her wrists bound, having felt the strength of his hands. I smiled to myself. I had seen that look in the eyes of girls before. Clitus, I expected, would have little difficulty with his short rence girl. "What will masters do with us?" asked the lithe girl, lifting her head. "You will be taken as slave girls to Port Kar," I said.

"No, no!" cried the lithe girl.

The blond girl screamed, and the shorter girl, dark-haired, began to sob, putting her head to the deck.

"Is the raft fully ready?" I asked.

"It is," boomed Thurnock. "It is."

"We have tied it with the rence craft," said Clitus, "abeam of the starboard bow of this barge."

I picked up the long coil of binding fiber from which I had, earlier, cut three lengths, to bind Telima. I tied one eand about the throat of the lithe girl. "What is your name?" I asked.

"Midice," said she, "if it pleases master."

"It does not displease me," I said. "I am content to call you by that name." I found it a rather beautiful name. It was pronounced in three syllables, the first accented.

Thurnock then took the same long length of binding fiber, one end of which I had fastened about Midice's neck, and, without cutting it, looped and knotted it about the neck of the large, blond, gray-eyed girl, handling the coil then to Clitus, who indicated that the short rence girl should take her place in the coffle.

"What is your name?" boomed Thurnock to the large girl, who flinched. "Thura," she said, "-if it pleases Master."

"Thura!" he cried, slapping his thigh. "I am Thurnock!"

The girl did not seem much pleased by this coincidence.

"I am of the peasants," Thurnock told her.

She looked at him, rather in horror. "Only of the peasants?" she whispered. "The Peasants," cried out Thurnock, his voice thundering over the marsh, "are the ox on which the Home Stone rests!"

"But I am of the Rencers!" she wailed.

The Rencers are often thought to be a haigher caste that the Peasants. "No," boomed Thurnock. "You are only Slave!"

The large girl wailed with misery, pulling at her bound wrists.

Clitus had already fastened the short rence girl in the coffle, the binding fiber looped and knotted about her neck, the remainder of the coil fallen to the deck behind her.

"What is your name?" he asked the girl.

She looked up at him, shyly. "Ula," she said, "-if it pleases master." She lowered her head.

I turned to the woman and the child I had freed earlier, and had made to stand to one side.

Telima, haltered, bound hand and foot at the bottom of the stairs to the tiller deck, addresed herself to me. "As I recall," she said, "you are going to take us all to Port Kar, to be sold as slaves."

"Be silent," I told her.

"If not," she said, "I expect you will have the barges sunk in the marsh, that we may all be fed to tharlarion."

I looked upon her in irritation.

She smiled at me.

"That," she said, "is what one would do who is of Port Kar."

"Be silent!" I said.

"Very well," said she, "my Ubar."

I turned again to the woman, and the child. "When we have gone," I said, "free your people. Tell Ho-hak that I have taken some of his women. It is little enough for what was done to me."

"A Ubar," pointed out Telima, "need give no accounting, no explanation." I seized her by the arms, lifting her up and holding her before me. She did not seem frightened.

"This time," she asked, "will you perhaps throw me up the stairs?"

"The mouth of rence girls," commented Clitus, "are said to be as large as the delta itself."

"It is true," said Telima.

I lowered her to her knees again.

I turned to the woman and the child. "I am also going to free the slaves at the benches," I said.

"Such slaves are dangerous men," said the woman, looking at them with fear. "All men are dangerous," I said.

I took the key to the shackles of the barge slaves. I tossed it to one of the men. "When we have left, and not before," I told him, "free yourself, and your fellows, on all the barges."

Numbly he held the key, not believing that it was in his hand, staring down at it. "Yes," he said.

The slaves, as one man, stared at me.

"The Rencers," I said, "will doubtless help you live in the marsh, should you wish it. If not, they will guide you to freedom, away from Port Kar." None of the slaves spoke.

I turned to leave.

"My Ubar," I heard.

I turned to look at Telima.

"Am I your slave?" she asked.

"I told you on the island," I said, "that you are not."

"Why then will you not unbind me?" she asked.

Angrily I went to her and slipped the Gorean blade between her throat and the halter, cutting it, freeing her from its tether. I then slashed away the fiber that had confined her wrists and ankles. She stood up in the brief rence tunic, and stretched.

She maddened me in the doing of it.

Then she yawned and shook her head, and rubbed her wrists.

"I am not a man," she said, "but I expect that a man would find Midice a not unpleasing wench."

Midice, bound, leading the coffle, lifted her head.

"But," said Telima, "is not Telima much better than Midice?"

Midice, to my surprise, shook with anger and, bound, tethered, turned to face Telima. I gathered that she had regarded herself as the beauty of the rence islands.

"I was first prow," said Midice to Telima.

"Had I been taken," said Telima, "doubtless I would have been first prow." "No!" shouted Midice.

"But I did not permit myself to be netted like a little fool," said Telima. Midice was speachless with fury.

"When I found you," I reminded Telima, "you were lying on your stomach, bound hand and foot."

Midice threw back her head and laughed.

"Nonetheless," said Telima, "I am surely, in all respects, superior to Midice." Midice lifted her bound wrists to Telima. "Look!" she cried. "It is Midice whom he had made his slave! Not you! That shows you who is most beautiful!" Telima looked at Midice in irritation.

"You are too fat," I said to Telima.

Midice laughed.

"When I was your Mistress," she reminded me, "you did not find me too fat." "I do now," I said.

"I learned long ago," said Telima, loftily, "never to believe anything a man says."

Telima was now walking about the three girls. "Yes," she was saying, "not a bad catch." She stopped in front of Midice, who led the coffle. Midice stood very straight, disdainfully, under her inspection. The Telima, to Midice's horror, felt her arm, and slapped her side and leg. "This one is a little skinny," said Telima.

"Master!" cried Midice, to me.

"Open your mouth, Slave," ordered Telima.

In tears, Midice did so, and Telima examined her, casually, turning her head this way and that.

"Master!" protested Midice, to me.

"A slave," I informed her, "will take whatever abuse a free person chooses to inflict upon them."

Telima stepped back, regarding Midice.

"Yes, Midice," she said, "all things considered, I think you will make an excellent slave."

Midice wept, pulling at the binding fiber on her wrists.

"Let us be off," I said.

I turned to go. Already, Thurnock and Clitus, in loading the raft, had placed on it my helmet, and shield, and the great bow, with its arrows.

"Wait," said Telima.

To my amazement she slipped out of her rence cloth tunic and took a place behind the third girl in the coffle, the shorter rence girl, Ula.

She shook her hair back over her shoulders.

"I am fourth girl," she said.

"No," I said, "you are not."

She looked at me with irritation. "You are going to Port Kar, are you not?" she asked.

"Yes, ' I said.

"That is interesting," she said, "I, too, am going to Port Kar."

"No, you are not," I said.

"Add me to the coffle," she said, "I am fourth girl."

"No," I said, "you are not."

Again she regarded me with irritation. "Very well," she said. And then, angrily, loftily, she walked to the deck before me and then, movment by movement, to my fury, knelt before me, back on her heels, head down, arms extended, wrists crossed, as though for binding.

"You are a fool!" I told her.

She lifted her head, and smiled. "You may simply leave me here if you wish," she said.

"It is not in the codes," I said.

"I thought," said she, "you no longer kept the codes."

"Perhaps I should slay you!" I hissed.

"One of Port Kar might do such." she said.

"Or," I said, "take you and show you well the meaning of a collar!" "Yes," she smiled, "or that."

"I do not want you!" I said.

"Then slay me," she said.

I seized her by the arms, lifting her up. "I should take you, ' I said, " and break your spirit!"

"Yes," she said, "I expect you could do that, if you wished."

I threw her down, away from me.

She looked up at me, angrily, tears in her eyes. "I am fourth girl," she hissed. "Go to the coffle," said I, "Slave."

"Yes," said she, "-Master."

She stood there proudly, straightly, behind the short rence girl, Ula, and, wrists bound, and tethered by the neck, was added to the salve coffle, as fourth girl.

I looked upon my former Mistress, nude, bound in my coffle.

I found myself not displeased to own her. There were sweet vengeances which were mine to exact, and hers to pay. I had not asked for her as slave. But she had, for some unaccountable reason, submitted herself. All my former hatreds of her began to rear within me, the wrongs which she had done me, and the degradation and humiliation to which she had submitted me. I would see that she abided well by her decison of submission. I was angry only that I myself had not stripped her and beaten her, and made her a miserable slave as soon as we had come to the barges.

She did seem particularly disturbed at the plight in which she found herself. "Why do you not leave her here?" demanded Midice.

"Be silent, Slave," said Telima, to her.

"You, too, are a Slave!" cried Midice. Then, Midice looked at me. She drew a deep breath, there were tears in her eyes. "Leave her here," she begged. "I–I will serve you better."

Thurnock gave a great laugh. The large, blond girl, Thura, gray-eyed, and the shorter rence girl, Ula, gasped.

"We shall see," remarked Telima.

"What do you want her for?" asked Midice, of me.

"You are stupid, aren't you?" asked Telima, of the girl.

Midice cried out with rage. "I," she cried, "-I will serve him better!" Telima shrugged. "We shall see," she said.

"We will need one," said Clitus, "to cook, and clean, and run errands." Telima cast him a dark look.

"Yes," I said, "that is true."

"Telima," said Telima, "is not a serving slave."

"Kettle Girl," I said.

She sniffed.

"I would say," laughed Thurnock, grinning, "kettle and mat!" He had one tooth missing on the upper right.

I held Telima by the chin, regarding her. "Yes," I said, "doubtless both kettle and mat."

"As Master wishes," said the girl, smiling.

"I think I will call you — " I said, "- Pretty Slave."

She did not seem, to my amazement, much distressed nor displeased.

"Beautiful Slave would be mor appropriate," she said.

"You are a strange woman," said I, "Telima."

She shrugged.

"Do you think your life with me will be easy?" I asked.

She looked at me, frankly. "No," she said, " I do not."

"I thought you would never wish to go again to Port Kar," I said.

"I would follow you," she said, "-even to Port Kar."

I did not understand this.

"Fear me," I said.

She looked up at me but did not seem afraid.

"I am of Port Kar," I told her.

She looked at me. "Are we not both," she asked, "of Port Kar?"

I remembered her cruelties, her treatment of me. "yes," I said, "I suppose we are."

"Then, Master," said she, "let us go to our city."