“Let them be whipped,” said Kliomenes, “both of them.”
Kliomenes reclined in the curule chair of Policrates, holding his court.
Mira and Tala, the blond sisters from Cos, kneeling naked before the chair of Kliomenes, their hands bound behind their back, their necks joined by a length of binding fiber, cried out with misery. They had failed to sufficiently please Jandar, one of the minor captains in the holding of Policrates. Each, in the opinion of Jandar had not tried hard enough to outdo the other in addressing themselves to his pleasure. Perhaps the fact that they were sisters had to some extent inhibited them, each fearing to appear the most lascivious slave before the other. Yet, of course, such inhibitions, under any circumstances, are not permitted to slave girls. They would get over them, or die. Too, I suspected that Jandar had not handled them well. If he would have handled them with adequate skills I had little doubt that each, indeed, would have striven desperately to outdo the other, each trying to be the favorite. Properly handled he could have had them in moments at one another’s throats, as competitive love slaves.
“Should this complaint be brought again to my attention,” said Kliomenes to the girls, “I shall have you cast naked into the jaws of tharlarion.”
“Yes, Master!” said Mira. “Yes, Master!” said Tala.
“Take them away,” said Kliomenes. The two girls, by the binding fiber which tied them together by the neck, were pulled, half choking, to their feet, and dragged from his presence.
“Why have I been brought here, Captain?” I asked the pirate at my side, who had conducted me to the tiles of the hall. It was he who was commonly in charge of the workers at the windlass.
“Kliomenes is holding court,” he grinned.
“But I have done nothing,” I said, as though frightened.
“We shall let Kliomenes be the judge of that,” he said.
“Please, no, Captain,” I said.
“Be silent,” he said, grinning.
“Yes, Captain,” I said. The collar and chain which had fastened me to the windlass pole had been removed from my neck, but I wore still, on my wrists and ankles, the other chains from the room of the windlass.
“What is next?” inquired Kliomenes.
“The disposition of loot,” said a pirate.
He thrust five, low, flat coffers of coins across the tiles, and put beside them a tangle of jewelry and a bowl of pearls.
“And there is this, too,” said the man. He thrust forward a chained girl. Her ankles were joined by some two feet of graceful chain, and her wrists, too, were linked by some two feet of chain. This type of chaining is not so much to confine a girl as it is to have her in chains, and display her. This type of chaining is very beautiful. The primary bond on such a girl, of course, is her slavery itself. On Gor what stronger bond need a girl wear?
She stood before Kliomenes, graceful in the chains.
“Is she pretty?” asked Kliomenes.
Her head was covered with semi-transparent, scarlet cloth, the central portions of such a cloth which had been cast over her, a large cloth, which fell to her calves. It was held on her by being tied under her chin and about her neck with a soft, braided scarlet cord. I could see the lineaments of her body beneath the semi-transparent cloth. She was left-thigh branded, the common Kajira mark, that mark which can grace the thigh of any girl, from the most average of slaves to the prizes in a Ubar’s Pleasure Gardens. And, indeed, does that mark not tell us that they are all, in a sense, from the homeliest pot girl to the imbonded treasure of a Ubar, only common Kajirae?
The pirate behind the girl, who had thrust her forward, unknotted the cord from her throat, that which held the cloth over her head and kept it fixed, too, upon her body. She could probably see somewhat through the cloth, but not well. There seemed something familiar about her. The pirate drew the cloth away from the slave. He dropped it behind her. She knelt. I stepped back. It was she who had once been the Lady Florence of Vonda. I knew her now, of course, as Florence, who was, or had been, the slave of Miles of Vonda. To be sure, she was delicious loot.
“You may do obeisance, my dear,” said Kliomenes.
The girl rose to her feet and went to Kliomenes. She knelt before him, on the dais, and put her head down. Gently, softly, she licked and kissed his feet. She then rose again to her feet, backed away, and then, on the tiles, again knelt. She put the palms of her hands on the tiles, and lowered her head to the tiles. Then she straightened up, her back straight, assuming the position of the pleasure slave, though keeping her head bowed, deferentially.
“She is pretty,” said Kliomenes.
“Yes,” said the pirate.
“Girl,” said Kliomenes.
“Yes, Master,” she said, lifting her head.
“How were you taken?” asked Kliomenes.
“By force, Master,” she said. “My Master, Miles of Vonda, took ship from Victoria, in the Flower of Siba.”
I knew the ship. Siba is one of the Vosk towns. It lies to the east of Sais.
“He was bound for Turmus. He took two slaves with him, myself and a male slave, he named Krondar.”
Miles of Vonda, in my opinion, had been rash. I had suggested my reservations concerning traveling on the river in these troubled times to Florence, when I had spoken to her in the tavern of Tasdron. She would, doubtless, in turn, have conveyed these reservations to Miles of Vonda. But, it seems, the proud Vondan had ignored them.
Doubtless he had ignored the advice of others, too, in this matter. In the river towns the dangers of these times were common knowledge. Little else, these days, it seemed, was spoken of in the taverns, in the markets, and on the wharves.
“We were attacked by two ships west of Tafa,” she said. “One, as I understand it, was the galley Telia, captained by Simak, of this holding, he who has just presented me, and other loot, before you. The other was the galley Tamira, captained by Reginald, he who is in the fee of Ragnar Voskjard.”
“You were to escort the Tamira back to the vicinity of the chain,” said Kliomenes, regarding the pirate who had presented the loot before him. “How is it that you dallied enroute to engage in more prosaic transactions?”
“It was gold lying on the sand, fruit ripe to be plucked,” shrugged the pirate.
“The Tamira is carrying the signs and countersigns, as you know,” said Kliomenes.
“They are safe,” the pirate assured him.
“What is the Tamira?” I asked the pirate next to me.
“The scout ship of Ragnar Voskjard,” said he. I had assumed this must be the case. I myself, in my unsuccessful ruse, betrayed, presumably by the Earth-girl slave, Peggy, had posed as a commander of scout ships, supposedly sent ahead by the fleet of Ragnar Voskjard. Now, it seemed, so soon, the actual ship, or ships, though it now seemed there was only one, had appeared, conducted its business, and was now returning westward on the river, presumably to rendezvous with the Voskjard. That a single ship had been involved suggested a certain complacency on the part of the western pirates. Had they truly so little to fear?
“The chain has not yet been cut?” I asked. I gathered that it had not been cut from the nature of the conversation I had heard. On the other hand, it seemed puzzling to me how the Voskjard’s scout ship could have appeared in these waters if the chain had not been cut.
“No,” said the pirate next to me.
“How could she have crossed the chain?” I asked.
“A single ship, posing as a merchantman, not inspected, it was not difficult,” he said.
“The chain was opened for her?” I asked.
“As it is for honest ships,” said the man. He grinned.
“She experienced no difficulties?” I asked.
“We have friends at the chain,” said the pirate.
“I see,” I said.
“She will return, as she came,” he said.
“I see,” I said. Inwardly I was furious. How futile, how ineffective, was the expedient of the chain!
Kliomenes regarded the flat coffers of coins on the tiles before his dais, the jewelry, the bowl of pearls, and the girl.
“Is this,” he asked, “truly an equal division of the spoils of the Flower of Siba?”
“We have something of the better of it, in my opinion,” said the pirate before the dais.
“I see,” said Kliomenes.
“Not much of great value is currently moving on the river,” said the pirate. “Men are frightened. Most of the loot is being kept in the towns.”
“Once joined with the Voskjard,” said Kliomenes, “we can fetch it forth from the towns, as it pleases us.”
“True, Captain,” said the pirate.
Kliomenes smiled, addressed as Captain, though within the holding of Policrates.
“Put the coins, the jewelry, the pearls in the general coffers,” said Kliomenes.
The pirate before the dais signaled to some men and they removed the coins, the jewelry and pearls from before the dais.
“And what of this?” asked the pirate before the dais, taking the girl by the hair and forcing her head up and back, bending then her body back, so as to reveal the bow of her enslaved beauty.
Kliomenes regarded the girl, musingly. “The values of many things,” he said, “seem patent, but not the value of a slave.” He gestured that the pirate should release her, and he did so. The girl then knelt, looking at him. “Are you only beautiful, my dear?” he asked.
She put down her head, sobbing.
“Keep her in the holding,” said Kliomenes. “I myself shall assess her tonight.”
The girl, then, in her chains, was dragged sobbing from his presence.
Kliomenes then looked at me, and I was thrust forward, stumbling, toward the dais. Unbidden, I knelt. There was laughter from the pirates in the room. I was the last item on his agenda for the morning. He had saved me for last.
“I should have slain you long ago, in the tavern of Tasdron, in Victoria,” said Kliomenes.
“Forgive me, Captain,” I said, head down.
“I understand that you are a braggart, and a liar,” said Kliomenes.
“No, no, Captain,” I said, hastily.
“He maintains,” said the pirate who had conducted me to the room, he normally in charge of the crews of the windlass, “that he deceived both you and Policrates, and us all, by posing as the courier of Ragnar Voskjard.”
“Are you so desperate for status among your fellow sleen,” asked Kliomenes, “that you will risk such lies in this place?”
I kept my head down. I seemed to tremble.
“You warned him, did you not?” inquired Kliomenes, of my guard.
“Many times, Kliomenes,” said the man. “But even this morning he persisted in these assertions, thinking I was not within that distance wherein I might detect his boasts.”
“I see,” said Kliomenes.
“Too, yesterday,” said the man, “he spoke disparagingly of you.”
“What did he say?” inquired Kliomenes, amused.
“He spoke of you as a dolt,” said the pirate.
There was laughter from among the men present. Now, I noted, lifting my head, that Kliomenes did not seem amused. There was resentment of Kliomenes, and jealousy, and fear, I suspected, in the holding. There were perhaps others present who would not have minded usurping his lieutenancy to Policrates. Kliomenes looked about the room, and the laughter instantly faded. “That is indeed amusing,” said Kliomenes, returning his attention to me.
“Forgive me, Captain,” I begged.
“The courier, or he who posed as the courier of Ragnar Voskjard, though not my equal, was not unskilled with the sword,” said Kliomenes.
“Forgive me, Captain,” I begged.
“Do not slay him, Kliomenes,” said one of the men near the curule chair, “for he might be of use in bargaining for the freedom of the true courier of Ragnar Voskjard, who must have been captured by our enemies in Victoria.”
“They would not exchange so valuable a man for this worthless fellow, a dock worker,” said Kliomenes.
“Wait for Policrates,” said the man. “Let him make decision on this matter.”
“In the absence of Policrates,” said Kliomenes, “I am first in the holding.”
“I do not contest that,” said the man, stepping back, angrily.
Kliomenes again looked at me. “Thus,” said he, “if you are truly he who posed as the courier of the Voskjard, you, too, must be not unskilled with the sword.”
“Forgive me, Captain,” I begged.
“Put a sword in his hand,” said Kliomenes.
The fellow near me, who had brought me to the room, withdrew his blade from its sheath. He held it to me, hilt first.
“No,” I said, “no!”
“Take it,” said Kliomenes, evenly.
I took the blade by the hilt, in one chained wrist. I took care to hold it improperly. I held it as though it might have been a hammer, and too close to its guard, which would, of course, in actual swordplay, impair its mobility considerably.
Two or three of the men laughed. Kliomenes then rested back in his curule chair. He had been watching closely. He was a vain and arrogant man, but he was no fool. He had not won his way to the lieutenancy of Policrates by being stupid.
“Can you not kill me as I am, in my chains?” I asked. “Must you mock me?”
“Take him outside,” said Kliomenes, rising, and stretching.
“Please, Captain, one favor,” I begged, “one favor.”
“What?” asked Kliomenes, puzzled.
“Do not let those of the windlass room know what was done to me,” I begged.
“Bring them, in their chains, outside,” said Kliomenes, to my guard, “that they may observe what is done to this fellow.”
“No, Captain, please!” I begged.
But, already, two men were pulling me by the arms from the room.
I blinked against the light of the sun.
I felt the chains on my wrists and ankles being removed. Armed men surrounded me. In one hand I still clutched, with apparent ineptness, and as though in fear, the sword which I had been commanded to take from the pirate.
I looked about. I stood on a board walk, some twenty feet wide, which borders the lake-like courtyard of the holding. We were within its high, formidable walls. Wharfed within the courtyard were only some five vessels, and smaller boats. To my right was the large door, of dark iron, leading into the recesses of the holding. Across the courtyard, some hundred yards or so of deep water, I could see the walkway at the foot of the outer wall, and the stairs leading to the parapets. Too, I could see the great sea gate.
“You will soon see what your braggadocio will gain you,” said my guard, whose sword I clutched.
There was laughter about us.
I then heard the sounds of chains, moving in a slow cadence. My fellows, now in close chains and ankle coffle, from the room of the windlass, were being brought out to observe what was to be done to me.
I put my head down, as though shamed, to be exposed as a liar before them. This way, too, my smile, that they were no longer in the room of the windlass, and were heavily chained, could be concealed. It would be several Ehn, surely, before they could be returned to the room of the windlass and manage to raise the sea gate.
“Back away. Give us room,” said Kliomenes, approaching. I shuddered, and stepped back. He handed his sword to a fellow and pulled his tunic down to the waist. He then took his sword back, and, with a slash or two in the air, tried its balance. I saw that his blade would move with great swiftness. I was also reassured that mine could move even more swiftly.
“Clear more space,” said Kliomenes.
The men moved back, around us, clearing a broad circle. Two of the men with Kliomenes, I noticed, had their own blades drawn. If, perchance, he found himself in difficulties, I did not doubt but what they would soon interpose themselves on his behalf. It would do me no good, of course, even if I could manage it, to wound or slay Kliomenes within the confines of the present situation. My objective was not to deal with him, so to speak, but to extricate myself from the holding. My only chance in this rapid, dark matter, as I saw it, was to enlist his vanity and, hopefully, a recklessness attendant upon it, in my own cause.
“Are you ready, my stalwart simpleton, my handsome braggart, to now make good your showy boasts?” inquired Kliomenes.
I looked to the fellows from the windlass. They stood there, locked in their chains, grim and sullen. A miserable looking crew, I thought. Their despondency pleased me. In spite of my vainglorious carryings-on in the room of the windlass, which doubtless they must have found tiresome, it did not seem, even so, that they were looking forward eagerly to seeing me butchered before their very eyes. This pleased me. It also encouraged me to believe that they would find it difficult to make their way rapidly back to the room of the windlass. Hurried, they might even be expected to fall, or to become entangled in their chains. Such things can happen.
The blade, suddenly, darted toward me.
I stumbled backward, off balance.
“Lucky parry,” said one of the pirates.
“There is no Callimachus to rescue you now, Dolt,” said Kliomenes, measuring me, the point of his blade moving subtly, a yard or so from my chest.
Then, again, the blade struck, swift as an ost toward me.
“The dock worker is fortunate,” said one of the pirates.
But then I was afraid, for I realized that Kliomenes had intended, that time, to truly strike me. He had now backed away, and was regarding me, warily. One such parry might be fortunate, but that two such parries should follow one another, apparently so clumsy, and yet, both, similarly effective, would surely appear to defy the probabilities involved in such matters.
“He is skilled,” said Kliomenes.
“He is clumsy!” laughed one of the men. There was more laughter. “Are you afraid, Kliomenes?” asked another.
Kliomenes glanced to the two men nearest him, those with their swords drawn. At a word from him, of course, both would rush upon me, and then, perhaps, others.
I dropped my sword.
Kliomenes tensed, but did not rush forward. “You could have killed him then,” said a man.
I, clumsily, picked up the sword, breathing heavily. I looked at Kliomenes, as though frightened.
Kliomenes was regarding me, undecided. He knew that I could have retrieved the sword before he could have reached me. He did not know, however, for certain, that I also knew that.
“Have mercy, Captain,” I said to him.
“He’s afraid,” said one of the pirates.
I then realized that I must play a most dangerous game. It was not the others I must convince of my ineptitude with the blade, but Kliomenes himself. The others did not matter.
“Forgive me, Captain,” I begged. I then knelt and put the sword on the walkway before me. Then I slid it, hilt first, toward him.
There were snorts of scorn from the pirates about.
“Please, Captain,” I begged, “let me be returned to the windlass.”
Kliomenes smiled. “Coward,” said more than one of the pirates to me.
I knelt at the mercy of Kliomenes, defenseless. He could then have rushed upon me and slaughtered me like a tethered verr.
“Please, Captain,” I seemed to beg, “let me be returned to the windlass.”
Kliomenes looked about himself, and smiled. Then he kicked the blade back to me. “Take up your sword,” he said.
I reached for the blade and, as I did so, he rushed upon me, and I met the blade, striking downwards, with a dash of steel and a shower of sparks. He was off balance and I reared upward, close to him, within his guard, seizing him and half turning him in the crook of my right arm, the blade in that hand. “Back away!” I cried to the pressing others. Kliomenes cried out with misery. My left hand was now in his hair, pulling his head back, and the blade of my sword lay across his throat.
“Back away!” whispered Kliomenes, tensely, held. I turned, holding him, seeing that the others kept their distance.
“Do not come closer,” I warned the pirates, “or his throat is cut.”
“I slipped,” said Kliomenes. “I slipped.”
“Drop your sword,” I told Kliomenes. He did so.
“Release him,” said one of the pirates. “You cannot escape.”
“Put down your swords,” I told them. “Put them on the walk.”
They hesitated and Kliomenes felt the edge of the steel, set to slide on his throat.
“Put down your swords, Fools!” said Kliomenes.
I saw the steel, blade by blade, sheathed and unsheathed, put to the stones of the walk.
My steel was then to the back of Kliomenes. “Precede me to the parapets,” I told him. “Do not follow,” I warned the pirates.
“Surrender your sword,” said Kliomenes.
“Hurry,” I told him.
“You have nothing with which to bargain,” he said.
“I have your life,” I told him. He tensed. “Before you could run two steps,” I told him, “I could have you half on my sword or cut your head from your body.”
“Perhaps not,” said Kliomenes, uneasily.
“It is a risk I am content to take,” I informed him. “Are you?”
He looked at me.
I opened my left hand, at my hip. “If necessary,” I said, “I am prepared to conduct you to the parapets, bent over, as a female slave.”
“That will not be necessary,” he said. He turned, then, and preceded me about the walkway bordering the lake-like courtyard. I looked back and saw the group of pirates. They did not follow. They stood near the iron door, the entry into the inner holding. Their steel lay still about their feet.
“Put aside your bow,” I ordered one of the men on the walls, climbing toward the parapets.
“Put away your bow,” ordered Kliomenes, angrily, preceding me.
In a few moments, walking along the parapets, we had come to the edge of the west gate tower, that which houses, in its lowest level, the chamber of the windlass.
Two or three of the men, their bows in hand, edged near us.
“Put aside your bows,” I told them.
“Do as he says,” said Kliomenes, angrily.
The bows were put to their feet. They were short, ship bows, stout and maneuverable, easy to use in crowded quarters, easy to fire across the bulwarks of galleys locked in combat. I had seen only such bows in the holding of Policrates. Their rate of fire, of course, is much superior to that of the crossbow, either of the draw or windlass variety. All things considered, the ship bow is an ideal missile weapon for close range naval combat. It is superior in this respect even to the peasant bow, or long bow, which excels it in impact, range and accuracy.
I glanced over the edge of the wall. We were, as I had intended, in the vicinity of the sea gate. I did not know how deep the water was there. Yet I knew it must be deep enough to accommodate the keel of a captured, heavily laden round ship.
“What do you intend?” asked Kliomenes.
“Tell them to fetch rope,” I said, gesturing to the men on the wall.
Kliomenes grinned. “Fetch rope,” he said.
They hurried down the stairs.
“It seems you will make good your escape,” said Kliomenes. He assumed that I had had the men seriously sent for rope. He assumed that when they returned I would use the rope to descend from the wall. By that time, of course, the men would be again on the wall, doubtless some of them armed, and with bows. Clambering down the rope I would be vulnerable, and the rope, too, could be cut.
“Now, we are alone on the wall,” I said to Kliomenes, leveling the sword at his belly. He backed away, a step. “Do not kill me,” he said, suddenly, turning white. Behind him was the long drop to the walkway below.
I drew back my arm as though to ram the steel through his belly. He twisted away, and fled. I laughed, not pursuing him. I did not think he would stop until he was safely again among his men. Then, discarding the sword, I ascended the parapet and leaped feet first to the waters far below. It seemed I was a long time in the air. The rush of it was cold on my body, and tore at my hair. I then struck the water, seeming to plummet through it, and struck with great force the mud and debris of the bottom. I sank into it to my knees. I feared my legs were broken. The water was swirling about me, loud, roaring, in my ears.
I tore loose, kicking, of the mud, and pushed upward toward the surface, which, after some seconds, gasping, I broke. I shook the water from my head; I blinked it from my eyes. I looked upward, at the parapets, far above. My legs were numb, but I could control them. No arrows struck into the water about me. I gasped for breath, and then submerged, and swam underwater for the brush and trees, half sunken, which bordered the channel leading to the gate. I emerged among roots and reeds.
Only then, looking back, from the cover of the half-submerged growth, did I see men fast appear on the walls. I had had them sent from the walls. They would not even know in which direction I had set out. I then swam again underwater for a time until I emerged in the spongy terrain north and west of the holding, shielded from sight by trees from her walls. I assumed they would think I would have emerged north and east of the channel, for that lies closer Victoria. I would, at any rate, have a good start on any who might wish to give pursuit. It would take several Ehn, I was sure, to get the great sea gate raised. I had seen to that. I could always cross the channel northeastward, at my convenience, under the cover of darkness, to move toward Victoria, or I might, if I chose, move simply to the southern shore of the Vosk. I was certain I could find means from there to make my way back to Victoria. Small ships abound on the Vosk. I began then to move swiftly. I was cold. But I was in good spirits.