John Norman - Nomads of Gor

I searched among the wagons long before I found, sitting cross-legged beneath a wagon, wrapped in a worn bosk robe, his weapons at hand folded in leathers the young man whose name was Harold, the blond-haired, blue-eyed fellow who had been so victimized by Hereena, she of the First Wagon, who had fallen spoils to Turia in the games of Love War.

He was eating a piece of bosk meat in the Tuchuk fashion, holding He meat in his left hand and between his teeth, and cutting pieces from it with a quiva scarcely a quarter inch from his lips, then chewing the severed bite and then again holding the meat in his hand and teeth and cutting again.

Without speaking I sat down near him and watched him eat. He eyed me warily, and neither did he speak. After a time I said to him, “How are the bosk?”

“They are doing as well as night be expected,” he said.

“Are the quivas sharp?” I inquired.

“We try to keep them that way,” he said.

“It is important,” I observed, “to keep the axles of wagons greased.”

“Yes,” he said, “I think so.”

He handed me a piece of meat and I chewed on it.

“You are Tarl Cabot, the Koroban,” he said.

“Yes,” I said, “and you are Harold the Tuchuk.”

He looked at me and smiled. “Yes,” he said, “I am Harold the Tuchuk.”

“I am going to Turia,” I said.

“That is interesting,” said Harold, “I, too, am going to Turia.”

“On an important matter?” I inquired.

“No,” he said.

“What is it you think to do?” I asked.

“Acquire a girl,” he said.

“Ah,” I said.

“What is it you wish in Turia?” inquired Harold.

“Nothing important,” I remarked.

“A woman?” he asked.

“No,” I said, “a golden sphere.”

“I know of it,” said Harold, “it was stolen from the wagon of Kutaituchik.” He looked at me. “It is shill to lie worthless.”

“Perhaps,” I admitted, “but I think I shall go to Turia and look about for it. Should I chance to see it I might pick it up and bring it back with me.”

“Where do you think this golden sphere will be lying about?” asked Harold.

“I expect,” I said “it might be found here or there in the House of Saphrar, a merchant of Turia.”

“That is interesting,” said Harold, “for I had thought I might try chain luck in the Pleasure Gardens of a Turian merchant named Saphrar.”

“That is interesting indeed,” I said, “perhaps it is the same.”

“It is possible,” granted Harold. “Is he the smallish fellow, rather fat, with two yellow teeth.”

“Yes,” I said.

“Then I shall attempt not to he hitter,” I said.

“I think that is a good idea,” granted Harold.

Then we sat there together for a time, not speaking further, he eating, I watching while he cut and chewed the meat that was his supper. There was a fire nearby, but it was not his fire. The wagon over his head was not his wagon. There was no kaiila tethered at hand. As far as I could gather Harold had little more than the clothes on his back, a boskhide robe, his weapons and his supper.

“You will be slain in Turia,” said Harold, finishing his meat and wiping his mouth in Tuchuk fashion on the back of his right sleeve.

“Perhaps,” I admitted.

“You do riot even know how to enter the city,” he said.

“That is true,” I admitted.

“I can enter Turia when I wish,” he said. “I know a way.”

“Perhaps,” I suggested, “I might accompany you.”

“Perhaps,” he granted, carefully wiping the quiva on the back of his left sleeve.

“When are you going to Turia?” I asked.

“Tonight,” he said.

I looked at him. “Why have you not gone before?” I asked.

He smiled. “Kamchak,” he said, “told me to wait for you.”

It was not a pleasant path to Turia that Harold the Tuchuk showed to me, but I followed him.

“Can you swim?” he asked.

“Yes,” I said. Then I inquired, “How is it that you, a Tuchuk, can swim?” I knew few Tuchuks could, though some had learned in the Cartius.

“I learned in Turia,” said Harold, “in the public baths where I was once a slave.”

The baths of Turia were said to be second only to those of Ar in their luxury, the number of their pools, their temperatures, the scents and oils.

“Each night the baths were emptied and cleaned and I was one of many who attended to this task,” he said. “I was only six years of age when I was taken to Turia, and I did not escape the city for eleven years.” He smiled. “I cost my master only eleven copper tarn disks,” he said, “and so I think he had no reason to be ill satisfied with his investment.”

“Are the girls who attend to the baths during the day as beautiful as it is said?” I inquired. The bath girls of Turia are almost as famous as those of Ar.

“Perhaps,” he said, “I never saw them during the day I and the other male slaves were chained in a darkened chamber that we might sleep and preserve our strength for the work of the night.” Then he added, “Sometimes one of the girls, to discipline her, would be thrown amongst us but we had no way of knowing if she were beautiful or not.”

“How is it,” I asked, “that you managed to escape?”

“At night, when cleaning the pools, we would be unchained, in order to protect the chain from dampness and rust we were then only roped together by the neck, I had not been put on the rope until the age of fourteen, at which time I suppose my master adjudged it wise prior to that I had been free a bit to sport in the pools before they were drained and sometimes to run errands for the Master of the Baths it was during those years that I learned how to swim and also became familiar with the streets of Turia one night in my seventeenth year I found myself last man on the rope and I chewed through it and ran, I hid by seizing a well rope and descending to the waters below there was movement in the water at the foot of the well and I dove to the bottom and found a cleft, through which I swam underwater and emerged in a shallow pool, the well’s feed basin I again swam underwater and this time emerged in a rocky tunnel, through which flowed an underground stream fortunately in most places there were a few inches between the level of the water and the roof of the tunnel it was very long, I followed it.”

“And where did you follow it to?” I asked.

“Here,” said Harold, pointing to a cut between two rocks, only about eight inches wide, through which from some underground source a flow of water was emerging, entering and adding to the small stream at which, some four pasangs from the wagons, Aphris and Elizabeth had often drawn water for the wagon bosk.

Not speaking further, Harold, a quiva in his teeth, a rope and hook on his belt, squeezed through and disappeared. I followed him, armed with quiva and sword.

I do not much care to recall that journey. I am a strong swimmer but it seemed we must confront and conquer the steady press of flowing water for pasangs and indeed we did so. At last, at a given point in the tunnel, Harold disappeared beneath the surface and I followed him. Gasping, we emerged in the tiny basin area fed by the underground stream. Here, Harold disappeared again under the water and once more I followed him. After what seemed to me an uncomfortably long moment we emerged again, this time at the bottom of a tile-lined well. It was a rather wide well, perhaps about fifteen feet in width. A foot or so above the surface hung a huge, heavy drum, now tipped on its side. It would contain literally hundreds of gallons-of water when filled. Two ropes led to the drum, a small rope to control its filling, and a large one to support it; the large rope, incidentally, has a core of chain; the rope itself, existing primarily to protect the chain, is treated with a waterproof glue made from the skins, bones and hoofs of bosk, secured by trade with the Wagon Peoples. Even so the rope and chain must be replaced twice a year. I judged that the top of the well might lie eight or nine hundred feet above us.