John Norman: Mariners of Gor

“Please, no, Master!” whispered the girl. Then she said, quickly, frightened, “Forgive me, Master.”

She had spoken without permission.

“Let her stay,” said the stranger.”

The lapse was slight, and obviously inadvertent, and had been immediately, fearfully, penitently, corrected. Masters use judgment, and common sense. The breach, so natural and trivial, did not require discipline. It was not as though boldness, or intention, had been involved. The punishment of slaves, as that of other animals, kaiila and such, is used sparingly, and seldom without clear justification. Gratuitous cruelty is frowned upon, and seldom occurs on Gor. To be sure, the whip exists, and the slave knows it will be used upon her if she is not pleasing, and fully pleasing. She is, after all, a slave.

The girl looked up, gratefully. How alive, and inquisitive, the little brutes are in their collars. They want to know everything.

Too, she may have wished, nude and collared, to remain in the presence of the stranger. Certainly, the second time, in delivering paga, she had licked and kissed the cup, before lowering her head and extending it to him, with all the fervor and forward lasciviousness of a helplessly aroused kajira , begging to be found worthy of an alcoving. Too, she may have read something in the eyes of the stranger, when he had looked upon her, which shook her to the core. It may have been something simple, such as “I am a master. You are a slave.”

“As you wish,” said the taverner.

“Of course,” said the stranger, “she is to be bound, hand and foot.”

The taverner gestured to his man, and he took up the looped binding fiber which the slave had placed on the yellow, carefully folded camisk. In moments, her small wrists, crossed, had been bound behind her and her ankles, crossed, had been fastened together.

Briefly the slave squirmed a little, trying the fiber, and found herself, as she would have expected, the wholly helpless prisoner of its snug coils.

At a gesture from the stranger to the taverner’s man the slave, nude, bound, and kneeling, was thrust back a little, a foot or two, rather outside the pool of light, rather into the shadowed darkness, presumably that her presence might be less obtrusive, and that she would better know herself for what she was, a woman and a slave.

“Speak,” urged the taverner.

“Speak,” said more than one man.

“I sailed on the great ship,” said the stranger. “Yea, the ship of Tersites.”

It was an awesome sight.

One feared it was a ship of no mortal creation, but rather a vessel of Priest-Kings, come from the clouds over the Sardar, gone on air. Yet, as our patrol craft had approached it, and we could more discern its make, it was seen to be clearly formed of wood, carvel-built, six-masted, single-ruddered, massively so, square-sailed.

We detected it first, by the glass of the Builders, from the stem castle, far off, through the fog, not clear, seemingly risen from the sea as might a mountain, as the islands that Thassa sometimes lifts from her bosom, in southern waters, with a roiling of waves, a casting of stones, and smoke and fire, when she pleases.

“It is a fortress, a city!” exclaimed the left helmsman.

“There can be nothing here,” said the captain. “These are open waters. Familiar waters. We know them well.”

“Take the glass, captain,” said the lookout.

“It is an illusion,” said the captain, “a lie whispered by the fog, the sea and wind.”

“The glass, captain,” insisted the lookout.

We were two days out from the port of Telnus, terraced Cos’s southern window to the sea, our mother, mighty Thassa, on routine patrol.

We had heard no report, no rumors. Another day, and a junction with the long ships of Tyros, and we would return to Telnus.

No ship, no vessel, might ply these waters without papers, bearing the seal of either Tyros or Cos.

Thus are the farther islands sheltered, protected from illicit trade, and the wealth of Cos and Tyros conserved.

“It is no illusion,” said the captain, his eye to the glass.

“What then?” asked his second officer, peering into the fog. The season was nearly over, the time when ships were taken from the water for their wintering, the time when rational mariners withdrew wisely from lashing, gleaming Thassa, leaving her, the mother, to her moods of violence, to her towering, rushing, lifting waves, higher than the masts of round ships, to her bitter storms and cruel ice.

We at the oars, free men all, for our vessel was a long ship, low in the water, knifelike, fit for war, were looking forward to our winter leave, and the paga and girls of the taverns, The Silver Chain, the Beaded Whip, the Pleasure Garden, the Chatka and Curla, the Ubar’s Choice, and others.

“It is moving,” said the captain. “It is no island, no mountain. It is afloat, moving, slowly, but moving.”

“Can we overtake it?” asked the second officer.

“Yes,” said the captain.

“Is it wise to do so?” said the second officer.

“I do not know,” said the captain.

“There is a chill wind,” said the second officer, gathering his cloak about himself.

We, two at an oar, above decks, wore gloves, for the wood was cold.

“Lower the mast,” called the captain.

The single yard was lowered, and the storm sail furled. The mast and yard, with its furled sail, were then lashed down, parallel to the deck. On such ships, as you may know, there are various sails, whose use depends on the weather. The mast is lowered when the ship prepares for action. We were lateen-rigged, as is common, this allowing one to sail closer to the wind. In Torvaldsland, and to the north, it is common to use a single rudder, and a single sail, square-rigged.

The captain pointed toward the object in the distance, indistinct in the fog.

The two helmsmen brought us about.

Another gesture from the captain, this to the keleustes , increased the beat.

As the mast went down our fellows at the springals lit the bucketed fires in which the oil-soaked wrappings on javelin heads might be ignited.

On the long ship, as opposed to some round ships, one does not stand at the oar. And from the thwart, of course, one cannot, while at the oar, see much over the bulwarks. That is just as well, of course, for the bulwarks provide some protection from arrow fire, certainly from most long ships, which, like us, unlike many round ships, are low in the water. Even galleys with rowing frames have comparable shieldings. In any event, without standing, I could see very little, and one does not stand while at the oar, not on the long ship.

While I was at the oar, it would be well for you to understand, and I would have it understood, that I was not an oarsman, not by choice, not by calling, not by rating. One takes what fee one can when needful. I, once a spear of Cos, even a first spear, leader of nine men, with hundreds of others, after the trouble in Ar, scattered, separated from our commands and units, withdrew to Torcadino, and thence, bribing and spending, and then by recourse to brigandage and banditry, made our way by long marches to the sea, to the small coastal outposts and trading stations maintained by Tabor and Teletus, south of Brundisium, from which, with our last bit of silver, even to the surrender of accouterments and weapons, dispirited, hungry, and ruined, we obtained passage, mostly on fishing craft, little more than refugees, some to Tyros, most to Cos. I went first to Jad, city of my birth, city of great Lurius, our Ubar, where I had been enlisted and trained, but swords were plentiful there, and I was scorned, for my blade, with helmet and gear, was gone, having been bartered, in part, together with my last tarsk, for passage, for life, from the continent, and great Lurius, too, given the cessation of the draining of Ar’s wealth, the drying up of that flowing stream of gold, was muchly displeased with the recent events on the continent, and ill-disposed to receive those whom he had once sent to the ships with stirring music and brave banners. Impoverished, weaponless, defeated, despised, and disgraced, those such as I would not be welcomed. We were an embarrassment, visible tokens of a state’s shame. I sought fee then in Selnar, and Temos, but was no more fortunate. The defeat in the south, and the indignity of our retreat marked us, clinging to us as a stain. I became an itinerant laborer, concealing that I had once held rank amongst the spears of Cos. I lived as I could, earning what I might, in one town or another, a tarsk here, a tarsk there, and then it came to my attention, from a peddler come north, encountered in a tavern, that openings for oarsmen were being advertised in Telnus. The patrol fleet was being expanded, that the waters between Tyros and Cos might be better secured, better protected against unregulated shipping, this posing an unwelcome, yea, unacceptable, threat to the welfare and profits of our merchantry. And so it came about that I, who had been a spear of Cos, even a first spear, a leader of nine, who had served in the occupation of Ar, who had served even in the Central Cylinder itself, whose wallet had once been heavy with gold, who had walked proudly, who had been feared in the streets, whom none would dare accost, ventured to Telnus, hungry and destitute, seeking so modest a place as one on the thwarts of a patrol ship. Even so, many were the applicants for a single oar. Things were well in Cos for some, but less so for many. Where coin had been abundant, it was now scarce.