John Norman - Rogue of Gor

“I see no women with them, no slaves,” I said.

“They were embattled,” said the man. “For their lives they bartered their goods and slaves.”

“These were all from Lara or her vicinity?” I asked.

“Yes,” said he. “They had not realized that the troops of Lara would be moving east, or that the brigands and pirates would move so boldly.”

“Are these all of them?” I asked, apprehensively.

“No,” said the fellow. “Some of them have gone to the food tent.”

“Was one called Oneander, a salt and leather merchant, among them?” I asked.

“Yes,” said the fellow.

The girl stirred uneasy. Her legs were drawn up. She wore the Ta-Teera, the slave rag, and a collar. She lay in the corner of the main room of the inn. She lay on a slave mat. I had put her there.

I sat, cross-legged, behind one of the low tables in the room. I chewed on a crust of bread. The inn, now, was deserted. It had been evacuated early this morning.

“That is ten copper tarsks,” had said the man last night, had placing before me a bowl of sul porridge. I had not argued. I had paid him.

“You cannot put me out!” a free woman had been crying to the proprietor of the inn, at his counter to the side.

“You did not pay me for your last nights lodging,” he told her. “Pay me now for that, and for tonight, or you may not remain within the inn.”

“A silver tarsk for a night’s lodging!” she cried. “That is unheard of. It is outrageous. You have no right to charge such prices!”

Others, too, about the counter, uttered such cries. The inn was that of Strobius, in Lara, at the confluence of the Olni and Vosk. It was crowded with refugees from Vonda. Many hundreds had fled from Vonda, and most had taken the river southward, paying highly for their fares on the varieties of river craft, barges, skiffs, river galleys, and even coracles, which had brought them to Lara.

“Those are my prices,” said Strobius.

“Sleen!” cried more than one man.

“Whatever the traffic will bear,” had grinned a fellow near me at my table.

“I am a free woman of Vonda!” the woman at the counter was crying.

I lifted the sul porridge to my lips. The mask I wore, like those of some others in the room, covered only the upper portions of my face.

There was pounding at the inn door. Guards, sliding back a panel in the door, looked through. Then they admitted another small group of refugees. There would be no rooms for them, as there were none for many of the guests, but they, too, albeit only for a space in a corridor, would be charged a full silver tarsk for their lodging. The Inn of Strobius was not thought to be a good inn, but it was a large inn, and a stout one. Too, it was one of the few inns remaining open in Lara. Many of the refugees, destitute, who had come to Lara had not been permitted to land at the quays, but had been driven further downriver. Too, here and there in the city, river pirates, with impunity, sought women and plundered.

Several of the men in the room, other than myself, wore masks. I lowered the sul porridge to the table. It was not good, but it was hot.

“I am a free woman of Vonda!” the woman at the counter was crying. “You cannot put me out!”

Oneander of Ar, the salt and leather merchant, and some others, had worn masks at the loot camp outside the city of Vonda. He had been, perhaps, well advised to do so. He had intended to trade with Lara, a member of the Salerian Confederation. This would not make him popular in Ar, or in the strongholds of Ar. Too, he had been, as I had ascertained, attacked by river pirates on the south bank of the Olni and, embattled, had bargained for his life and those of his men by delivering his goods and slaves to the assailants. It was little wonder that he had chosen to mask his features. He did not wish to encounter the wrath of those of Ar, and he wished, doubtless, to conceal his chagrin and shame over the embarrassing termination of his business venture in the north.

I had waited outside the food tent in the loot camp. The sky to the west was lit with the flames of Vonda.

“Are you Oneander of Ar?” I asked the fellow who emerged from the tent.

“No,” he said.

“I think you are Oneander of Ar,” I said to him.

“Do not speak so loudly,” had said he, looking about, “you fool!”

I had then reached to his tunic and seized him, dragging him toward me.

“Remove your mask,” I told him.

“Is there no one to protect me?” he called.

“What is going on here?” inquired a guardsman.

“I think this is Oneander of Ar,” I said.

“I had heard he was in the camp,” said the guardsman. “Are you he?”

“Yes,” said the man, hesitantly, angrily.

“Remove the mask,” I said. “Or I shall.”

Angrily he drew away the mask.

“It is Oneander,” said the guardsman, not pleased.

“Do not leave me here with him!” called Oneander of Ar.

But the guardsman had turned his back and left.

“Who are you?” asked Oneander of Ar, apprehensively.

“I was once a silk slave,” I said. “You may recall me, from the streets of Ar, some months ago, in the neighborhood of the shop of Philebus. You set two slaves upon me.”

“Do not kill me,” he whispered.

“I have heard,” said I, “that you were embattled near Lara and surrendered slaves and goods.”

“On the south bank of the Olni,” he said, “yes, it is true.”

“You did well,” I said, “to save the lives of your men, and yourself.”

“I have lost much,” he said.

“What do you conjecture,” I asked, “to be the fate of your goods and slaves?”

“They are no longer mine,” he said. “They are now the property of the river pirates, theirs by the rights of sword and power.”

“That is true,” I said. “But what do you conjecture is to be their fate?”

“It is not likely they could be sold in Lara, or northward,” he said. “Usually the river pirates sell their goods and captures somewhere along the river, in one of the numerous river towns.”

“What towns?” I asked.

“There are dozens,” he said. “Perhaps Ven, Port Cos, Iskander, Tafa, who knows?”

“He who attacked you, the pirate chieftain,” I said, “who was he?”

“There are many bands of river pirates,” he said.

“Who was he?” I asked.

“Kliomenes, a lieutenant to Policrates,” he said.

“In what town does he sell his wares?” I asked.

“It could be any one of a dozen towns,” said Oneander. “I do not know.”

I seized him by the tunic, and shook him.

“I do not know!” he said. “I do not know!”

I held him.

“Please do not kill me,” he whispered.

“Very well,” I had said, and released him. I had then turned about and went toward the tarn cots of the loot camp, that I might arrange with some bold tarnsman to provide me with transportation, by a suitably circuitous route, to the vicinity of Lara.

The girl again stirred in the corner of the room. She rolled to her back. One knee was raised. She was luscious in the slave rag and collar. She turned her head from side to side. She made a small noise. She opened and closed one small hand. I wondered if she were aware, dimly, of the coarse fibers of the slave mat beneath her back. I did not think so, not yet.

“I am a free woman of Vonda!” the woman at the counter had been crying out last night. “You cannot put me out!”

“You will pay or be ejected,” Strobius had told her.

“You cannot put me out into the street!” she said.

I had taken another sip of the sul porridge.