Raiders of Gor

9 Port Kar

I watched the dancing girl of Port Kar writhing on the square of sand between the tables, under the whips of masters, in a Paga tavern of Port Kar. "Your paga," said the nude slave girl, who served me, her wrists chained. "It is warmed as you wished."

I took it from her, not even glancing upon her, and drained the goblet. She knelt beside the low table, at which I sat cross-legged.

"More," I said, handing her back the goblet, again not deigning to even glance upon her.

"Yes, Master," she said, rising, taking the goblet.

I liked paga warm. One felt it so much the sooner.

It is called the Whip Dance, the dance the girl upon the sand danced. She wore a delicate vest and belt of chains and jewels, with shimmering metal droplets attached. And she wore ankle rings, and linked slave bracelets, again with shimmering droplets pendant upon them; and a locked collar, matching. She danced under ships' lanterns, hanging from the ceiling of the paga tavern, it located near the wharves bounding the great arsenal.

I heard the snapping of the whip, her cries.

The dancing girls of Port Kar are said to be the best of all Gor. They are sought eagerly in the many cities of the planet. They are slave to the core, vicious, treacherous, cunning, seductive, sensuous, dangerous, desirable, excruciatingly desireable.

"Your paga," said the girl, who served me.

I took it from her, again not seeing her. "Go, Slave," said I.

"Yes, Master," she said and, with a rustle of the chain, left my side. I drank more paga.

So I had come to Port Kar.

Four days ago, in the afternoon, after two days in the marshes, my party had reached the canals of the city.

We had come to one of the canals bordering on the delta.

We had seen that the canal was guarded by heavy metal gates, of strong bars, half submerged in the water.

Telima had looked at the gates, frightened. "When I escapted from Port Kar," she said, "there were no such gates."

"Could you have escaped then," asked I, "as you did, had there been such gates?" "No," she whispered, frightened, "I could not have."

The gates had closed behind us.

Our girls, our slaves, wept at the poles, guiding the raft into the canal. As we passed beneath windows lining the canals men had, upon occasion, leaned out, calling us prices for them.

I did not blame them. They were beautiful. And each poled well, as could only one from the marshes themselves. We might well have congratulated ourselves on our catch of rence girls.

Midice, Thura, Ula, Telima.

We no longer kept them in a throat coffle. But we had, about the throat of each, wrapped, five times, a length of binding fiber, and knotted it, that this, serving as collar, might mark them as slave. Aside from this they were not, at the time we had entered the city, secured, save that a long length of binding fiber, knotted about the right ankle of each, tied them together. Telima had been branded long ago, but the thighs of Midice, Thura and Ula had never yet felt the iron.

I watched the girl from Port Kar dance.

We could, tomorrow, brand the three girls, and purchase collars.

There was something of an uproar as a large, fierce-looking fellow, narrow-eyed, ugly, missing an ear, followd by some twenty of thirty sailors, burst into the tavern.

"Paga! Paga!" they cried, throwing over some tables they wished, driving men from them, who had sat there, then righting the tables and sitting about them, pounding on them and shouting.

Girls ran to serve them paga.

"It is Surbus," said a man near me, to another.

The fierce fellow, bearded, narrow-eyed, missing an ear, who seemed to be the leader of these men, seized one of the paga girls, twisting her arm, dragging her toward one of the alcoves. I thought it was the girl who had served me, but I was not certain.

Another girl ran to him, bearing a cup of paga. He took the cup in one hand, threw it down his throat, and carried the girl he had seized, screaming, into one of the alcoves. The girl had stopped dancing the Whip Dance, and cowered on the sand. Other men, of those with Surbus, seized what paga girls they could, and what vessels of the beverage, and draged their prizes toward teh alcoves, sometimes driving out those who occupied them. Most, however, remained at the tables, pounding on them, demanding drink.

I had heard the name of Surbus. It was well known among the pirate captains of Port Kar, scourge of gleaming Thassa.

I threw down another burning swallow of the paga.

He was pirate indeed, and slaver, and murderer and thief, a cruel and worthless man, abominable, truly of Port Kar. I felt little but disgust.

And then I reminded myself of my own ignobility, my own cruelties and my own cowardice.

I, too, was of Port Kar.

I had learned that beneath the hide of men burned the hearts of sleen and tharlarion, and that their moralities and ideals were so many cloaks to conceal the claw and tooth. Greed and selfishness I now, for the first time, understood. There is more honesty in Port Kar, I thought, than in all the cites of Gor. Here men scorn to sheath the claws of their heart in the pretenses of their mouth. Here, it this city, alone of all the cities of Gor, men did not stoop to cant and prattle. Here they knew, and would acknowledge, the dark truths of human life, that, in the end, there was only gold, and power, and the bodies of women, and the steel of weapons. Here they concerned themselves only with themselves. Here they behaved as what they were, cruelly and with ruthlessness, as men, despising, and taking what they might, should it please them to do so. And it was in this city, now mine, that I belonged, I who had lost myself, who had chosen ignominious slavery to the freedom of honorable death.

I took yet another swallow of paga.

There was a girl's scream and, from the alcove into which Surbus had dragged her, the girl, bleeding, fled among the tables, he plunging drunken after her. "Protect me!" she cried, to anyone who would listen. But there was only laughter, and men reaching out to seize her.

She ran to my table and fell to her knees before me. I saw not she was the one who had served me earlier.

"Please," she wept, her mouth bloody, "protect me." She extended her chained wrists to me.

"No," I said.

Then Surbus was on her, his hand in her hair, and he bent her backwards. He scowled at me.

I took another sip of paga. It was no business of mine.

I saw the tears in the eyes of the girl, her outstretched hands, and then, with a cry of pain, she was draged back to the alcove by the hair.

Several men laughed.

I turned again to my paga.

"You did well," said a man next to me, half-shaven. "That was Surbus." "One of the finest swords of Port Kar," said another.

"Oh," I said.

Port Kar, squalid, malignant Port Kar, scourge of gleaming Thassa, Tarn of the Sea, is a vast, disjointed mass of holdings, each almost a fortress, piled almost upon one another, divided and crossed by hundreds of canals. It is, in effect, walled, though it has few walls as one normally thinks of them. Those buildings which face outwards, say, either at the delta or along the shallow Tamber Gulf, have no windows on the ourward side, and the outward walls of them are several feet thick, and they are surmounted, on the roofs, with crenelated parapets. The canals which open into the delta of the Tamber were, in the last few years, fitted with heavy, half-submerged gates of bars. We had entered the city through one such pair of gates. In Port Kar, incidentally, tehre are none of the towers often encountered in the norther cities of Gor. The men of Port Kar had not chosen to build towers. It is the only city on Gor I know of whihc was built not by free men, but by slaves, under the lash of masters. Commonly, on Gor, slaves are not permitted to build, that being regarded as a privilege to be reserved for free men.

Politically, Port Kar is a chaos, ruled by several conflicting Ubars, each with his own following, each attempting to terrorize, to govern and tax to the extent of his power. Nominally beneath these Ubars, but in fact much independent of them, is an oligarchy of merchant princes, Captains, as they call themselves, who, in council, maintain and manage the great arsenal, building and renting shitps and fittings, themselves controlling the grain fleet, the oil fleet, the slave fleet, and others.

Samos, First Slaver of Port Kar, said to be an agent of Priest-Kings, was, I knew, a member of this council. I had been suppose to contact him. Now, of course, I would not do so.

There is even, in Port Kar, a recognized caste of Thieves, the only such I know of on Gor, which, in the lower canals and perimeters of the city, has much power, that of the threat and the knife. They are recognized by the Thiefs Scar, which they wear as a caste mark, a tiny, three-pronged brand burned into the face in back of and below the eye, over the right cheekbone.

One might think that Port Kar, divided as she is, a city in which are raised the thrones of anarchy, would fall easy prey to either the imperialisms or the calculated retaliations of the other cities, but it is not true. When threatened from the outside the men of Port Kar have, desperately and with the viciousness of cornered urts, well defended themselves. Further, of course, it is next to impossible to bring large bodies of armed men through the delta of the Vosk, or, under the conditions of the marsh, to supply them or maintain them in a protracted siege.

The delta itself is Port Kar's strongest wall.

The nearest solid land, other than occasional bars in the marshes, to Port Kar lies to her north, some one hundred passangs distant. This area, I supposed, might theoretically be used as a staging area, for the storing of supplies and the embarkation of an attacking force on barges, but the military prospects of such a venture were decidedly not promising. It lay hundreds of pasangs from the nearest Gorean city other, of course, than Port Kar. It was open territory. It was subject to attack by forces beached to the west from the tarn fleets of Port Kar, through the marsh itself by the barges of Port Kar, or from the east or north, depending on hte marches following the disembarkation of Port Kar forces. Further, it was open to attach from the air by means of the cavalries of merceneary tarnsmen of Port Kar, of which she has several. I knew one of these mercenary captains, Ha-Kee, murderer, once of Ar, whom I had met in Turia, in the house of Saphrar, a merchant. Ha-Keel alone commanded a thousand men, tarnsmen all. And even if an attacking force could be brought into the marsh, it was not clear that it would, days later, make its way to the walls of Port Kar. It might be destroyed in the marshes. And if it should come to the walls, there was little likelihood of its being effective. The supply lines of such a force, given the barges of Port Kar and her tarn cavalries, might be easily cut. I took another drink of paga.

The men who had come to the tavern were roistering but order, to some extent, had been restored. Two of the ship's lanterns had been broken. There was glass, and spilled paga about, and two broken tables. But teh musicians were again playing and again, in the square of sand, the girl performed, through not now the Whip Dance. Nude slave girls, wrists chained, hurried about. The Proprietor, sweating, aproned, was tipping yet another great bottle of paga in its sling, filling cups, that they might be borne to the drinkers. There was an occasional scream from the alcoves, bringing laughter from the tables. I heard the flash of a whip somewhere, and the cries of a girl.

I wondered if, now that the canals were barred, slaves escaped from Port Kar. The nearest solid land was about one hundred pasangs to the north, but it was open land, and, there, on the edges of the delta, there were log outposts of Port Kar, where slave hunters and trained sleen, together, patrolled the marshes' edges.

The vicious, siz-legged sleen, large-eyed, sinuous, mammalian but resermbling a furred, serpentine lizard, was a reliable, indefatigable hunter. He could follow a scent days old with ease, and then, perhaps hundreds of pasangs, and days, later, be unleashed for the sport of the hunters, to tear his victim to pieces. I expected there was not likely to be escape for slaves to the north. That left the delta, with its interminable marshes, and the thirst, and the tharlarion.

Hunting sleen are trained to scent out and destroy escaped slaves.

Their senses are unusually keen.

Tuchuks, in the sounth, as I recalled, had also used sleen to hunt slaves, and, of course, to protect their herds.

I was becoming drunk, my thoughts less connected.

The sea, I thought, the sea.

Could not Port Kar be attacked from the sea?

The music of the musicians began to beat in my blood, reeling there. I looked at the girls serving paga.

"More paga!" I cried, and anoher wench ran lightly to serve me.

But only Cos and Tyros had fleets to match those of Port Kar.

There were the northern islands, of course, and they were numerous, but small, extending in an archipelago like a scimitar northeastward from Cos, which lay some four hundred pasangs west of Port Kar. But these islands were not united, and, indeed, the government of them was usualy no more than a village council. They usually possessed no vessels more noteworthy than clinker-built skiffs and coasters.

The girl in teh sand, the dancing girl, was now performing the Belt Dance. I had seen it done once before, in Ar, in the house of Cernus, a slaver.

Only Cos and Tyros had fleets to match those of Port Kar. And they, almost of tradition, did not care to engage their fleets with hers. Doubtless all sides, including Port Kar, regarded the risks as too great; doubtless all sides, including Port Kar, were content with the stable, often profitable, situation of constant but small-scale warfare, interspersed with some trading and smuggling, which had for so long characterized their relations. Raids of one upon the other, involving a few dozen ships, were not infrequent, whether on the shipping of Port Kar, or beaching on Cos or Tyros, but major actions, those which might involve the hundreds of galleys possessed by these redoubtable maritime powers, the two island Ubarates and Port Kar, had taken place in the more than a centrury.

No, I said to myself, Port Kar is safe from the sea.

And then I laughed, for I was considering how Port Kar might fall, and yet she was my own, my own city.

"More paga!" I cried.

Tarnsmen, aflight, might annoy her with arrows or fire, but it did not seem they could seriously harm her, not unless they come in thousands upon thousands, and not even Ar, Glorious Ar, possessed tarn cavalries so great. And how, even then, could Port Kar fall, for she was a mass of holdings, each individually defensible, room to room, each separated from the others by the canals which, in their hundreds, crossed and divided the city?

No, I said to myself, Port Kar could be held a hundred years.

And even should she, somehow, fall, her men need only take ship, and then, when it pleased them, return, ordering slaves again to build in the delta a city called Port Kar.

On Gor, I told myself, and perhaps on all worlds, there will always be a Port Kar.

I found the girl on the sand seductive, and beautiful. The girls of Port Kar, I told myself are the best on Gor.

Tarnsmen, I thought, tarnsmen.

Off to my right a table was overturned and two men of the crew of Surbus were rolling about, brawling. Ohers were calling for Whip Knives to be brought. I remembered, with fondness, my own tarn, the sable monster, Ubar of the Skies. I extended my hand and the goblet was again refilled.

And I remembered, too, with bitterness, the girl, Elizabeth Cardwell, Vella of Gor, who had so helped me in my work in Ar on behalf of the Priest-kings. While returning her to the Sardar I had thought long on the matter of her safety. I surely could not permit her, though I then loved her, as I could not now, being unworthy to love, to remain longer in the dangers of Gor. Already she who doubtless be known to the Others, not Priest-Kings, who would challenge Priest-Kings for this world, and Earth. Her life would surely be in jeopardy. She had undertaken great risks with me, which I, foolishly, had permitted. When at last I had brought her safely back to the Sardar I had thus told her I would arrange with Misk, the Priest-King, that she be returned to Earth.

"No!" she had cried.

"I have made my decision," I told her. "You will be, for your own good, for your own safety and well-being, returned to the planet Earth, where you will no longer have to fear the perils of this world."

"But this is my world!" she had cried. "It is mine as much as yours! I love it and you cannot send me from it!"

"You will be returned to the planet Earth," I had informed her.

"But I love you," she said.

"I am sorry," I said, "It is not easy for me to do what I must do." There had been tears in my eyes. "You must forget me," I said. "And you must forget this world."

"You do not want me!" she cried.

"That is not true," I said, "I love you."

"You have no right," said she, "to take me from this world. It is mine, as much as yours!"

It would be hard, certainly, for her to leave this world, beautiful, bright and green, but perilous, for the cities of Earth, to breathe again its air, to live in its cubicles, to move jostled among her uncaring crowds, ot lose herself again in its mercantile grayness, its insensibilities and tediums, but it was better for her to do so. There she could be anonymous, and safe, perhaps contract a desirable marriage, and live well in a large house, perhaps with servants, and conveniences, and devices.

"You will take this world from me!" she cried.

"I have made my decision," I told her.

"You have no right," said she, "to make such a decision for me."

She looked up at me.

"It is done," I said. "Tomorrow you will be returned to Earth. Your work here is done."

I attempted to kiss her, but she had turned and, not crying, left me. My thoughts turned again to the great saddlebird, the War Tarn, Ubar of the Skies.

He had slain men who had attempted to climb to his saddle.

Yet, that night, he had permitted Elizabeth Cardwell, only a girl to saddle him, to fly away from Sardar.

He, alone, had returned four days later.

In fury I had driven the bird away.

I who had sought to protect her, had lost her.

And Talena, too, who has once been my Free Companion, years ago, I had lost. I had loved two women, and I had lost them both.

I wept at the table, foolishly.

I drank more paga, and my senses reeled.

Port Kar seemed sovereign on Thassa.

Her seamen were surely the match for any who might sail against them. They were perhaps the finest on all Gor.

It angered me, suddenly, drunkenly, that those of Port Kar, wicked as they were, should possess so superbly the skills of seamanship.

But then I laughed, for I should be proud. For was I not myself of Port Kar? Could we not do what we wished, taking what we wanted, as we had rence girls that pleased us, simply binding them and making them our slaves?

I laughed, for I had been considering, aforetime, how Port Kar might fall, and yet she was my own, my own city!

The two drunken seamen were now cutting away, wildly, at one another, with whip knives. They fought in the square of sand among the tables. The girl, who had danced there, she who had worn the delicate vest and belt of chains and jewels, with shimering metal droplets attached, with the musicians, had withdrawn to one side. Men were calling oods in betting.

The whip knife is a delicate weapon, and can be used with elegance, with finesse; it is, as far as I know, unique to Port Kar.

In the shouts, under the ship's lanterns, I saw the flesh leap from the cheek of one of the seamen. The girl, the dancer, eyes blazing with delight, fists clenched, was screaming encouragement to one of the contestants.

But these men were drunk and stumbling, and their brutal striking about, it seemed, was offensive to many at the tables, who disdained so crude an employment of a weapon of such subtlety.

Then one of the men was down, vomiting in his blood, on his hands and knees. "Kill him!" screamed the girl. "Kill him!"

But teh other fellow, drunk and bleeding, to great laughter among the tables, stumbled backwards, turned, and fell unconscious.

"Kill him!" screamed the girl, in her vest and belt of chains and jewels, to the unconscious man. "Kill him!"

But the other man, bleeding, shaking his head, had now crawled from the patch of sand and now, some yards off, had collaspsed among the tables, quite as unconscious as the first.

"Kill him!" shrieked the girl to the first man. "Kill him!"

Then she screamed with pain, throwing back her head, as the lash of the five-strap Gorean slave whip cut into her back.

"Dance, Slave!" commanded the proprietor, her Master.

She, terrified, fled to the sand, with a jangling of her chains, and jewels and metal droplets, and stood tehre, tears in her eyes, knees flexed, arms lifted over her head.

"Play!" cried the proprietor to the musicians. He cracked the whip once again. They began to play, and the girl, once more, danced.

I looked upon her, and looked, as well, from face to face in that crowded, noisy, poorly lit room, filled with men laughing and drinking. There was not a face there that I saw taht did not seem to me the face of an animal. And I, whoever or whatever I might be, sat with them, at the same tables. I joined in their laughter. "More paga!" I cried.

And then I wept, for I had loved two women, and had lost them both. And, as I watched, on that square of sand between the tables in a paga tavern in Port Kar, under the ship's lanterns, the movements of the body of a slave girl, the lights reflected in her chains, the rubies, the shimmering golden droplets, I grew slowly furious.

I vowed that I would never again lose a woman.

Woman, I told myself, as many said, was natural slave.

Then she was before my very table. "Master," she whispered.

Our eyes met.

She wore a collar. I was free. HEr gramet was an ornament. At my side I wore a sword of steel.

In the instant that our glances had met I had seen that she, whom I took as woman, would, if she had had the power, make men slaves, but in that same instant she had seen, in my seyes, that it was men who were the stronger, who held the power, and that it would be she, if any, who would be the slave. "Begone," I said, releasing her from my will.

She whirled away, angrily, frightened, moving to another table.

I watched her. "That," I said to myself, "is woman."

I watched her moving, noted the glistening of the ornament she wore, remarked its sound.

I observed her, vicious, seductive, sinuous, desirable, excruciatingly desirable, owned.

She was tormenting, the collared she of her and beautiful, but I laughed, for these things were not truly hers, but his, her master's, who had but shortly before put the whip to her back, for she was but a wench in bondage, one owned by a man, in all things his.

I laughed.

The men of Port Kar, I said, know well how to treat women.

The men of Port Kar, I said to myself, know well how to keep women. As slaves, and slaves alone!

Worthless are they for aught else!

I had loved two women, and I had lost them both.

I vowed I would never lose another.

I rose drunkenly to my feet and kicked the table away.

I do not recall as clearly as I might what occured during the night, but certain things have remained with me.

I do recall that I was incredibly drunk, and furiour, and miserable, and filled with hate.

"I am of Port Kar!" I cried.

I threw a sliver tarsk, taken from what we had obtained from the slavers in the marsh, to the proprietor of the paga tavern, and took in return one of the huge bottles of paga, and took in return one of the huge bottles out of the tavern, making my way along the narrow walkway lining the canal, toward the quarters taken by my men, Thurnock and Clitus, with our slaves.

I had pounded on the beamed door of our quarters. "Paga!" I had cried. "I bring paga!"

Thurnock took down the beams from the door, and swung it open.

"Paga!" he shouted, pleased, seeing the great bottle.

Midice, startled, looked up from where she knelt, polishing the hoops of brass upon my shield. About her throat were the five coils of binding fiber, knotted there in token of her slaver. I had given her a brief tunic of silk, briefer even than had been the rence tunic she had worn when she had taunted me at the pole, and when she had danced before me, which had been taken from her by the slaver after she had been netted on the island.

"Good, my Captain," said Clitus, from one side, where he sat working on a net, reinforcing its knots one by one. He grinned at the sight of the bottle. "I could use some paga," said he. He had purchased the net in the morning, with a trident, the traditional weapons of the fisherman of the western shore and the western islands. Kneeling quite near him, holding cord for him, fiber on her throat serving as collar, knelt short, dark-haired Ula. She, too, wore a slight bit of silk.

Thura, the large, blond girl, gray eyed, knelt near a pile of wood shavings. Thurnock, though in Port Kar, had found a piece of Ka-la-na stock, and had been carving a great bow, the long bow. I knew he had also found some bits of bosk horn, and some leather, and some hemp and silk. In two or three days, I expected, he, too, would have a bow. Piles he had already commissioned from a smith; and Thura, on his command, this afternoon, with a bit of stick, had struck down a Vosk gull, that the shafts he fashioned, whether from Ka-la-na or tem-wood, would be well fletched. She had been watching him make the bow, apparently, for most of the afternoon and evening. When I entered she dropped her head, saying "Greetings, my Master's Captain." She, too, wore binding fiber on her throat, and a bit of silk. I saw that Thurnock had had her put a flower in her hair, a talender. Kneeling, she looked up at him, and he gave her head a rough shake, getting shavings in her hair. She put her head down, smiling. "Where is the Kettle Slave!" I cried.

"Here, Master," said Telima, not pleasantly, entering the room and dropping to her knees before me.

On her throat as well were wound the five coils of binding fiber, declaring her slave.

Of the four girls only she did not wear silk, for she was only a Kettle Slave. She wore a brief tunic only of rep-cloth, already stained with grease and the spatterings of the kitchen. Her hair was not combed, and there was dirt on her knees and face. Her face was tired, and strained, and red, flushed from the heat of the cooking fires. Her hands had been blistered from scrubbing and burned from the cooking, roughened and reddened from the cleaning and the washing of the bowls and goblets. I found great pleasure in seeing the proud Telima, who had been my Mistress, as mere Kettle Slave.

"Master?" she asked.

"Make a feast," I said, "Kettle Slave."

"Yes, Master," she said.

"Thurnock," cried I, "secure the slaves."

"Yes, my Captain," he boomed.

Midice stood up, timidly. Her had was before her mouth. "What are you going to do, Master?" she asked.

"We are taking you out," I cried, "to be marked and collared!"

The three girls looked at one another in fear.

Already Turnock was putting them in a coffle, blinding the right wrist of each. Before we set out we broke open the great bottle of paga, and Thurnock, Clitus and I clashed goblets and emptied them of their swirling fires. Then we forced each of the girls, choking and sputtering, to themselves upturn a goblet, swilling down as best they could the firey draught. I recall Midice standing there in her silk, teh leather on her wrists, shaking, coughing, paga on her mouth, looking at me with fear.

"And then," I cried, "we will return and make a feast!"

Thurnock, Clitus and I once more clashed and emptied goblets, and then, leading Midice, first in the coffle, by the lead end of the binding fiber, I stumbled through the door, finding my way down the stairs, with the others, hunting for a smithy.

My memories are confused of the night, but we did find a smithy, and we had the girls marked, and purchased collars for the, lock collars, which we had suitably engraved. Ula's collar read I AM THE PROPERTY OF CLITUS; Thurnock has his slave's engraved THURA, SLAVE OF THURNOCK; I had two collars engraved, one for Midice and one for Telima; both read simply I BELONG TO BOSK.

I remember Midice, who had already been branded, standing with her badk to me and my standing behind her, quite close, with the collar, and placing it about her throat, then, decisively, closing it.

Holding her thus I kissed her on the throat.

She turned to face me, tears in her eyes, fingering the gleaming band of steel. She had been branded, and doubtless her thigh still stund from the fire of the iron. She knew herself then animal and slave, and so marked.

Now, about her throat, she wore as well the graceful badge of servitude. There were tears in her eyes as she extended her arms to me, and I took her into my arms and lifted her from her feet, turning and carrying her back to our quarters. As we walked, Thurnock following, carrying Thura, and Clitus then, Ula weeping in his arms, Midice put her head against my left shoulder, and I felt her tears through my tunic.

"It seems," said I, "Midice, I have won you."

"Yes," she said, "you have won me. I am your slave."

I threw back my head and laughed.

She had taunted me at the pole, Now she was my slave.

The girl wept.

That night, the girls in our arms, we feasted, lifting many cups of paga. Clitus, after returning to our quarters, had left and returned with four musicians, bleary-eyed, routed from their mats well past the Twentieth Hour, but, lured by the jingling of a pair of silver tarsks, ready to play for us, past the dawn if need be. We soon had them drunk as well and though it did not improve their playing, I was pleased to see them join with us in our festivities, helping us to make our feast. Clitus, too, had brought two bottles of Ka-la-na wine, a string of eels, cheese of the Verr, and a sack of red olives from the groves of Tyros.

We greeted him with cheers.

Telima had prepared a roast tarsk, stuffed with suls and peppers from Tor. There were great quantities of the yellow Sa-Tarna bread, in its rounded, six-part loaves.

We were served by the Kettle Slave, Telima. She poured paga for the men, and Ka-la-na for the women. She tore the bread for us, broke the cheese, ribboned the eels and cut the tarsk. She hurried from one to the other, and the musicians as well, scarcely serving one before being summoned to another. The girls commanded her as well as the men. She was only Kettle Salve and thus, they were of a higher sort than she. Further, I gathered, on the islands, Telima, with her beauty, her skills and arrogance, had not bee popular, and it pleased them no little that she should be, in effect, slave for them as well as their masters. I sat cross-legged at the low table, quaffing paga, my left arm about the shoulders of Midice, who, kneeling, snuggled against me.

Once, as Telima served me, I caught her wrist. She looked at me.

"How is it," I asked, "that a Kettled Slave has an armlet of gold?" Midice lifted her head and kissed me on the neck, "Give Midice the armlet," she wheedled.

Tears appeared in the eyes of Telima.

"Perhaps later," I told Midice, "if you well please me."

She kissed me. "I will well please you, Master," she said. Then she threw a look of contempt at Telima. "Give me wine," said she, "Slave."

As Midice kissed me again, lingeringly, holding my head in her hands, Telima, tears in her eyes, filled her cup.

Across the table I saw Ula, eyes timid, lift her lips to Clitus. He did not refuse her, and they began to kiss, and touch. Thurnock then seized Thura, pressing his lips upon hers. Helpless in his great arms she struggled, but then, as I laughed, she cried out as though in misery and began to yield to him, and then, moments later, her lips eagerly were seeking his.

"Master," said Midice, looking at me, eyes bright.

"Do you recall," I asked pleasantly, looking down into her eyes, "how some days ago you taunted me when I was bound at the pole?"

"Master?" she asked, her eyes timid.

"Have you forgotten," I asked, "how you danced before me?"

She drew back. "Please, Master," she whispered, her eyes terrified. I turned to the musicians. "Do you know," I asked, "the Love Dance of the Newly Collared Slave Girl?"

"Port Kar's?" asked the leader of the musicians.

"Yes," I said.

"Of course," said he.

I had purchased more than marking and collars at the smithy.

"On your feet," boomed Turnock to Thura, and she leaped frightened to her feet, standing ankle deep in the thick pile rug.

At the gesture from Clitus, Ula, too, leaped to her feet.

I put ankle rings on Midice, and then slave bracelets. And tore from her the bit of silk she wore. She looked at me with terror.

I lifted her to her feet, and stood before her.

"Play," I told the musicians.

The Love Dance of the Newly Collared Slave Girl has many variations, in the different cities of Gor, but the common theme is that the girl dances her joy that she will soon lie in the arms of a strong master.

The musicians began to play, and to the clapping and cries of Turnock and Clitus, Thura and Ula danced before them.

"Dance," said I to Midice.

In terror the dark-haired girl, lithe, tears in her eyes, she so marvelously legged, lifted her wrists.

Now again Midice danced, her ankles in delicious proximity and wrists lifted again together back to back above her head, palms out. But this time her ankles were not as though chained, nore her wrists as though braceleted; rather they were truly chained and braceleted; she wore the linked ankle rings, the three-linked slave bracelets of a Gorean master; and I did not thing she would now conclude her dance by spitting upon me and whirling away.

She trembled. "Find me pleasing," she begged.

"Don not afflict her so," said Telima to me.

"Go to the kitchen," said I, "Kettle Slave."

Telima turned and, in the stained tunic of re-cloth, left the room, as she had been commanded.

The music grew more wild.

"Where now," I demanded of Midice, "is your insolence, your contempt!" "Be kind!" she cried. "Be kind to Midice!"

The music grwe even more wild.

And then Ula, bolding before Clitus, tore from her own body teh silk she wore and danced, her arms extended to him.

He leaped to his feet and carried her from the room.

I laughed.

Then Thura, to my amazement, though a rence girl, dancing, revealed herself similarly to the great Thurnock, he only of the peasants, and he, with a great laugh, swept her from her feet and carried her from the room.

"Do I dance for life?" begged Midice.

I drew the Gorean blade. "Yes," I said, "you do."

And she danced superbly for me, every fiber of her beautiful body straining to please me, her eyes, each instant, pleading, trying to read in mine her fate. At last, when she could dance no more, she fell at my feet, and put her head to my sandals.

"Find me pleasing," she begged. "Find me pleasing, my Master!"

I had had my sport.

I sheathed the blade.

"Light the lamp of love," I said.

She looked up at me, gratefully, but saw then my eyes. Her test was not yet done.

Trembling she fumbled with the flint and steel, to strike sparks into the moss bowl, whence by means of a Ka-la-na shaving the lamp might be lit.

I myself thre down, in one cornver, near a slave ring, the Furs of Love. The musicians, one by one, each with a silver tarsk, stole from the room. An Ahn later, perhaps a bit more than an Ahn before dawn, the oil in the lamp of love had burned low.

Midice lay against me, in my arms. She looked up at me, and whispered, "Did Midice do well? Is Master pleased with Midice?"

"Yes," I said, wearily, looking at the ceiling. "I am pleased with Midice." I felt empty.

For a long time then we did not speak.

Then she said, "You are well pleased with Midice, are you not?"

"Yes," I said, " I am well pleased."

"Midice is first girl, is she not?"

"Yes," I said, "Midice is first girl."

Micide looked at me, and whispered. "Telima is only Kettle Slave. Why should she have an armlet of gold?"

I looked at her. Then, wearily, I rose to my feet. I drew on my tunic, and looked down at Midice, who lay there with her legs drawn up, looking at me. I could see the glow of the dim lamp on her collar.

I buckled about me the Gorean blade, with its belt and scabbard.

I went into the kitchen.

There I found Telima sitting against the wall, her knees drawn up, her head down. She raised her head and looked at me. I could see her barely in the light of the coals of the cooking fore, now a flat, reticulated pattern of red and black.

I slipped the golden armlet from her arm.

There were tears in her eyes, but she did not protest.

I unknotted the binding fiber about her throat, and took from my pouch her collar.

I showed it to her.

In the dim light she read the engraving. "I belong to Bosk," she said. "I did not know you could read," I said. Midice, Thura, Ula were all, as is common with rence girls, illiterate.

Telima looked down.

I snapped the collar about her throat.

She looked up at me. "It is a long time since I have worn a steel collar," she said.

I wondered how she had, whether in her escapte or afterwards in the islands, removed her first collar. Ho-Hak, I recalled, still wore the heavy collar of the galley slave. The rencers had no had the tools to remove it. Telima, a clever girl, had probably discovered and stolen the key to her collar. Ho-Hak's collar had been riveted about his throat.

"Telima," said I, thinking of Ho-Hak, "why was Ho-Hak so moved, when together we spoke of the boy Eechius?"

She said nothing.

"He would know him, of course," said I, "from the island."

"He was his father," said Telima.

"Oh," I said.

I looked down at the golden armlet I held in my hand. I put it on the floor and then, with the pair of slave bracelets I had removed from Midice, following her dance, I secured Telima to the kitchen's slave ring, fastened in its floor. I braceleted the left wrist first, passed the chain throught the ring, and then braceleted the right wrist. I then picked up the golden armlet, and again regarded it.

"It is strange," I said, "that a rence girl should have a golden armlet." Telima said nothing.

"Rest," said I, "Kettle Slave, for tomorrow you will doubtless have much to do." At the door of the kitchen I turned again to face her. For a long time, not speaking, we looked at one another. Then she asked, "-Is Master pleased?" I did not respond.

In the other room I tossed the golden armlet to Midice, who caught it and slipped it on her arm with a squeal of delight, holding up her arm, showing the armlet.

"Do not chain me," she wheedled.

But, with the ankle rings, taken from her following the dance, I secured her. I put one ring about the slave ring near which she had served me, and the other ring about her left ankle.

"Sleep, Midice," I said, covering her with the love furs.

"Master?" she asked.

"Rest," I said, "Sleep."

"I have pleased you?" she asked.

"Yes," I told her, "you have pleased me." Then I touched her head, moving back some of the dark hair. "Now sleep," said I, "now sleep, lovely Midice." She snuggled down in the love furs.

I left the room, going down the stairs.

I found myself alone in the darkness. It was about an Ahn, I conjectured, before daylight. I trod the narrow walkway lining the canal. Then, suddenly, falling to my hands and knees, I threw up into the dark waters. I heard one of the giant canal urts twist in the water somewhere beneath me. I threw up again, and then stood up, shaking my head. I had had too much paga, I told myself.

I could smell the sea, but I had not yet seen her.

The buildings lining the canals on each side were dark, but, here and there, in the side of one, near a window, was a torch. I looked at the brick, the stone, watched teh patterns and shadows playing on the walls of the buildings of Port Kar.

Somewhere I heard the squealing and thrashing of two of the giant urts fighting in the water, among the floating garbarge.

My steps took me again to the paga tavern where I had begun this night. I was alone, and miserable. I was cold. There was nothing of worth in Port Kar, nor in all the worlds of all the suns.

I pushed open the doors of the paga tavern.

The musicians, and the dancer, had gone, long ago I suppose.

There were not so many men in the paga tavern now, and those there were seemed mostly lost in stupor. Here and there lay among the tables, their tunics soiled with paga. Others lay, wrapped in ship's cloaks, against the wall. Some two or three still sat groggily at the tables, staring at goblets half-filled with paga. The girls, saving those who served still in the curtained alcoves, must have been somewhere chained for the night, probably in a slave room off the kitchen. The proprietor, when I entered, lifted his head from the counter, behind which hung a great bottle of paga in its pouring sling.

I threw down a copper tarn disk and he tilted the great bottle.

I took my goblet of paga to a table and sat down, cross-legged, behind it. I did not want to drink. I wanted only to be alone. I did not even want to think. i wanted only to be alone.

I heard weeping from one of the alcoves.

It irritated me. I did not wish to be disturbed. I put my head in my hands and leaned forward, elbows on the table.

I hated Port Kar, and all that was of it. And I hated myself, for I, too, was of Port Kar. That I had learned this night. I would never forget this night. All that was in Port Kar was rotten and worthless. There was no good in her. The curtain from one of the alcoves was flung apart. There stood there, framed in its conical threshold, Surbus, he who was captain of Port Kar. I looked upon him with loathing, despising him. How ugly he was, with his fierce beard, the narrow eyes, the ear gone from the right side of his face. I had heard of him, and well. I knew him to be pirate; and I kenw him to be slaver, and murderer, and thief; I knew him to be a cruel and worthless man, abominable, truly of Port Kar and, as I looked upon him, the filth and rottenness, I felt nothing but disgust.

In his arms he held, stripped, the bound body of a slave girl. It was she who had served me the night before, before Surbus, and his cutthroats and pirates, had entered the tavern. I had not much noticed her. She was thin, and not very pretty. She had blond hair, and, as I recalled, blue eyes. She was not much of a slave. I had not paid her much attention. I remembered that she had begged me to protect her and that I, of course, had refused.

Surbus threw the girl over his shoulder and went to the counter.

"I am not pleased with her," he said to the proprietor.

"I am sorry, Noble Surbus," said the man, "I shall have her beaten." "I am not pleased with her!" cried Surbus.

"You wish her destroyed?" asked the man.

"Yes," said Surbus, "destroyed."

"Her price," said the proprietor, "is five silver tarsks."

From his pouch Surbus placed five silver tarsks, one after the other, on the counter.

"I will give you six," I said to the proprietor.

Surbus scowled at me.

"I have sold her for five," said the proprietor, "to this noble gentleman. Do not interfere, Stranger, this man is Surbus."

Surbus threw back his head and laughed. "Yes," he said, "I am Surbus." "I am Bosk," I said, "from the Marshes."

Surbus looked at me, and then laughed. He turned away from the counter now, taking the girl from his shoulder and holding her, bound, in his arms. I saw that she was conscious, and her eyes red from weeping. But she seemed numb, beyond feeling.

"What are you going to do with her?" I asked.

"I am going to throw her to the urts," said Surbus.

"Please," she whispered, "please, Surbus."

"To the urts!" laughed Surbus, looking down at her.

She closed her eyes.

The giant urts, silken and blazing-eyed, living mostly on the garbage in the canals, are not stranger to bodies, both living and dead, found cast into their waters.

"To the urts!" laughed Surbus.

I looked upon him, Surbus, slaver, pirate, thief, murderer. This man was totally evil. I felt nothing but hatred, and an ugly, irrepressible disgust of him. "No," I said.

He looked at me, startled.

"No," I said, and moved the blade from the sheath.

"She is mind," he said.

"Surbus often," said the proprietor, "thus destroys a girl who has not pleased him."

I regarded them both.

"I own her," said Surbus.

"That is true," said the proprietor hastily. "You saw yourself her sale. She is truly his slave, his to do with as he wishes, duly purchased."

"She is mine," said Surbus. "What right have you to interfere?"

"The right of Port Kar," I said, "to do what pleases him."

Surbus threw the girl from him and, with a swift, clean motion, unsheathed his blade.

"You are a fool, Stranger," said the proprietor. "That is Surbus, one of the finest swords in Port Kar."

Our discourse was brief.

Then, with a cry of hatred and elation, my blade, parallel to the ground, that it not wedge itself between the ribs of its target, passed through his body. I kicked him from the blade and withdrew the bloodied steel.

The proprietor was looking at me, wide-eyed.

"Who are you?" he asked.

"Bosk," I told him, "Bosk from the Marshes."

Several of the men around the tables, roused by the flash of steel, had awakened.

They sat there, startled.

I moved the blade in a semicircle, facing them. None of them moved against me. I tore off some of his tunic and cleaned the blade on it.

He lay there on his back, blood moving from his mouth, the chest of his tunic scarlet, fighting for breath.

I looked down on him. I had been of the warriors. I knew he would not live long. I felt no compunction. He was totally evil.

I went to the slave girl and cut the binding fiber that fastened her ankles and wrists. The chains which she had worn while serving paga, and when she had asked for my protection, had been removed, doubtless while she had been in the alcove, sometime after I had left the tavern, that she might have better rendered Surbus, Captain of Port Kar, the dues of the slave girl. They had been serving bracelets, with two lengths of chain, each about a foot long, which linked them. I looked about the room. The proprietor stood back, behind his counter. None of the men had arisen from the tables, though many were of the crew of Surbus himself.

I looked at him.

His eyes were on me, and his hand, weakly, lifted. His eyes were agonized. He coughed blood. He seemed to want to speak, but could not do so.

I looked away from him.

I resheathed the blade.

It was good that Surbus lay dying. He was evil.

I looked upon the slave girl. She was a poor sort. She was scrawny, and thin faced, with narrow shoulders. Her blue eyes were pale. The hair was thin, stringy. She was my poor slave.

To my surprise she went and knelt next to Surbus, and held his head. He was looking at me. Again he tried to speak.

"Please," said the girl to me, looking up at me, holding he head of the dying man.

I looked upon them both, puzzled. He was evil. She, perhaps, was mad. Did she not understand that he would have hurled her bound to the urts in the canals? His hand lifted again, even more weakly, extended to me. There was agony in his eyes. His lips moved, but there was no sound.

The girl looked up at me and said, "Please, I am too weak."

"What does he want?" I asked, impatient. He was pirate, slaver, thief, murderer. He was evil, totally evil, and I felt for him only disgust.

"He wants to see the sea," she said.

I said nothing.

"Please," she said, "I am too weak."

I bent and put the arm of the dying man about my shoulders and, lifting him, with the girl's help, went back through the kitchen of the tavern and, one by one, climbed the high, narrow stairs to the top of the building.

We came to the roof, and there, near its edge, holding Surbus between us, we waited. The morning was cold, and damp. It was about daybreak.

And then the dawn came and, over the buildings of Port Kar, beyond them, and beyond the shallow, muddy Tamber, where the Vosk empties, we saw, I for the first time, gleaming Thassa, the Sea.

The right hand of Surbus reached across his body and touched me. He nodded his head. HIs eyes did not seem pained to me, nor unhappy. His lips moved, but then he coughed, and there was more blood, and he stiffened, and then, his head falling to one side, he was only weight in our arms.

We lowered him to the roof.

"What did he say?" I asked.

The girl smiled at me. "Thank you," she said. "He said Thank you."

I stood up wearily, and looked out over the sea, gleaming Thassa.

"She is very beautiful," I said.

"Yes," said the girl, "yes."

"Do the men of Port Kar love the sea?" I asked.

"Yes," said said, "they do."

I looked on her.

"What will you do now?" I asked. "Where will you go?"

"I do not know," she said. She dropped her head. "I will go away."

I put out my hand and touched her cheek. "Do not do that," I said. "Follow me." There were tears in her eyes. "Thank you," she said.

"what is your name?" I asked.

"Luma," she said.

I, followed by the slave Luma, left the roof, descended the long, narrow stairs. In the kitched we met the proprietor. "Surbus is dead," I told him. He nodded. The body, I knew, would be disposed of in the canals.

I pointed to Luma's collar. "Key," I said.

The proprietor brought a key and removed his steel from her throat. She fingered her throat, now bare, perhaps for the first time in years, of the encircling collar.

I would buy her another, when it was convenient, suitably engraved, proclaiming her mine.

We left the kitchen.

In the large central room of the tavern, we stopped.

I thrust the girl behind me.

There, waiting for us, standing, armed, were seventy or eighty men. They were seamen of Port Kar. I recognized many of them. They had come with Surbus to the tavern the night before. They were portions of his crews.

I unsheathed my blade.

One of the men stood forward, a tall man, lean, young, but with a face that showed the marks of Thassa. He had gray eyes, large, rope-rough hands. "I am Tab," he said. "I was second to Surbus."

I said nothing, but watched them.

"You let him see the sea?" said Tab.

"Yes," I said.

"Then," said Tab, "we are your men."