Explorers Of Gor

10
I Make Inquiries Of Kipofu, Who Is Ubar Of The Beggars Of Schendi

The blind man lifted his white, sightless eyes to me. His thin, black hand, clawlike, extended itself.

I placed a tarsk bit in his hand.

"You are Kipofu?" I asked.

I placed another tarsk bit in his hand. He put these two tiny coins in a small, shallow copper bowl before him. He was sitting, cross-legged, on a flat, rectangular stone, broad and heavy, about a foot high, at the western edge of the large Utukufu, or Glory, square. The stone was his etem, or sitting place. He was Ubar of the beggars of Schendi.

"I am Kipofu," he said.

"It is said," I said, "that though you are blind there is little which you do not see in Schendi."

He smiled. He rubbed his nose with his thumb.

"I would obtain information," I said to him.

"I am only a poor blind man," he said. He spread his hands, apologetically.

"There is little that transpires in Schendi which can escape your notice," I told him.

"Information can be expensive," he said.

"I can pay," I told him.

"I am only a poor and ignorant man," he said.

"I can pay well," I told him.

"What do you wish to know?" he asked.

He sat on his etem in brown rags, a brown cloth wound about his head, to protect him from the sun. There were sores upon his body. Dirt was crusted upon his legs and arms. The peel of a larma lay by one knee. He was blind, and half naked and filthy, but I knew him to be the Ubar of the beggars of Schendi. He had been chosen by them to rule over them. Some said that he had been chosen to rule over them because only he was blind and thus could not see how repulsive they were. Before him the deformed and maimed, the disfigured and crippled, might stand as men, as subject before sovereign, to be heard with objectivity and obtain a dispassionate and honest justice, neither to be dismissed with contempt or demeaningly gratified by the indulgence of one who holds himself above them. But if there were truth in this I think there was, too, a higher truth involved. Kipofu, though avaricious and petty in many respects, had in him something of the sovereign. He was a highly intelligent man, and one who could, upon occasion, be wise as well as shrewd. He was a man of determination, and of iron will, and vision. It was he who had first effectively organized the beggars of Schendi, stabilizing their numbers and distributing and allotting their territories. None might now beg in Schendi without his permission and none might transgress the territory of another. And each, each week, paid his tax to Kipofu, the inevitable price of government. These taxes, though doubtless much went to the shrewd Kipofu, for monarchs expect to be well paid for bearing the burdens and tribulations of office, served to obtain benefits and insurances for the governed. No beggar now in Schendi was truly without shelter, or medical care or needed go hungry. Each tended to look out for the others, through the functioning of the system. It was said that even members of the merchant council occasionally took Kipofu into their confidence. One consequence of the organization of the beggars, incidentally, was that Schendi did not have many beggars. Obviously the fewer beggars there are the more alms there are for each one. Unwanted beggars had the choice of having their passage paid from Schendi or concluding their simple careers in the harbor.

"I seek information," I said, "on one who seemed a beggar, who was called Kunguni."

"Pay," said Kipofu.

I put another tarsk bit into his hand.

"Pay," said Kipofu.

I put yet another tarsk bit into his hand.

"None in Schendi who begs is known as Kunguni," he said.

"Permit me to describe the man to you," I said.

"How would I know of these things?" asked Kipofu.

I drew forth a silver tarsk.

Kipofu, I knew, through the organization of the beggars, their covering of territories, and their reports, as well as his use of them as messengers and spies, was perhaps the most informed man in Schendi. He, like a clever spider in its web, was the center of an intelligence network that might have been the envy of many a Ubar. There were few tremors in Schendi which did not, sooner or later, reach Kipofu on his simple etem in the square.

"That is a silver tarsk," I said. I pressed it into his palm.

"Ah," he said. He weighed the coin in his hand and felt its thickness. He ran his finger about its edge to determine that it had not been shaved. He tapped it on the etem. And, though it was not gold, he put it in his mouth, touching its surface with his tongue, and biting against its resistance.

"It is of Port Kar," he said. He had, too, pressed his thumb against the coin, on both sides, feeling the ship, and, on the reverse, the sign of Port Kar, its initials, in the same script that occurred on her Home Stone.

"This man," I said, "is small, and has a crooked back, hunched. He has a scar on his left cheek. He limps, dragging his right leg behind him."

The blood seemed suddenly to drain from Kipofu's face.

He turned a shade paler. He stiffened. He lifted his, head, listening intently.

I looked about. None were close to us.

"No one is near us," I said. I had little doubt that Kipofu, who was reputed to have extremely sharp senses, might have heard breathing within a radius of twenty feet, even in the square. I wondered at the nature of the man, the mention of whom might have caused this reaction in the shrewd Kipofu.

"His back is crooked and it is not," said Kipofu. "His back is hunched and it is not. His face is scarred and it is not. His leg is crippled and it is not."

"Do you know who this man is?" I asked him.

"Do not seek him," said Kipofu. "Forget him. Flee."

"Who is he?" I asked.

Kipofu pressed the coin back at me. "Take your tarsk," said he.

"I want to know," I said, determinedly.

Kipofu suddenly lifted his hand. "Listen," said he. "Listen!"

I listened.

"There is one about," he said.

I looked about. "No," I said. "There is not."

"There," said Kipofu, pointing, "there!"

But I saw nothing where he pointed. "There is nothing there," I said.

'There!" whispered Kipofu, pointing.

I thought him perhaps mad. But I walked in the direction which he had pointed. I encountered nothing. Then the hair on the back of my neck rose, as I realized what it might have been.

"It is gone now," said Kipofu.

I returned to the etem of the Ubar of the beggars. He was visibly shaken.

"Go away!" he said.

"I would know who the man is," I said.

"Go away!" said Kipofu. 'Take your tarsk!" He held it out to me.

"What do you know of the Golden Kailiauk?" I asked.

"It is a paga tavern," said Kipofu.

"What do you know of a white slave girl who works within it?" I asked.

"Pembe," he said, "who is the proprietor of the tavern, has not owned a white-skinned girl in months."

"Ah!" I said.

"Take back your tarsk," said Kipofu.

"Keep it," I told him. "You have told me much of what I wanted to know."

I then turned about and strode away, taking my leave from the presence of Kipofu, that unusual Ubar of the beggars of Schendi.