Blood Brothers of Gor (3 page)

The collar of Canka which I wore, as I had come to realize in the past several days, was, all things considered, as he did not intend to enforce its significance upon me, a valuable accouterment. Canka was a respected and important young warrior; indeed, in the recent action to the west, he had even served as Blotanhunka of the All Comrades. This gave me, as hisproperty, a certain prestige, particularly as Canka himself treated me with obvious respect. He called me Tatankasa, or Red Bull, which was a noble name from the point of view of the Kaiila. He gave me noccasins. He permitted me my clothing. He let me have, even, the use of my former kaiila. I did not even stay in his lodge, or have to sleep near it. I stayed with Cuwignaka in a tattered lodge, donated by Akihoka, One-Who-Is-Skillful, a close friend of Canka. For most practical purposes I was free in the village.

"Kneel," said Hci.

I knelt, naked, save for the collar of Canka, in teh tall, dry grass.

"Put your head down," said Hci.

I did so.

"This is not necessary," said Cuwignaka.

"Be quiet, Siptopto," said Hci, "lest I consign you to the pleasure of wariors."

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"I do not fear you," said Cuwignaka.

"You speak boldly for a female," said Hci.

"I am a man," said Cuwignaka. Bold speech, incidentally, is commonly accepted from free females of their own people by the red savages. If she grows too irritating, of course, she may, like any other woman, be beaten. Bold speech on the other hand, is not accepted from female slaves among the red savages. Female slaves among such peoples quickly learn their place, a place in which they are kept with perfection.

"I did not know that," said Hci, as though interested.

"Yes," said Cuwignaka.

"On your belly," said Hci to me.

"Do not do this," said Cuwignaka.

"Crawl to the paws of my kaiila," said Hci to me.

"No," said Cuwignaka.

"Is he not a slave?" asked Hci.

"Yes," said Cuwignaka, uncertainly.

I moved to the paws of the kaiila, on my belly, my head down.

"Kiss the paws of my kaiila," said Hci to me, imperiously.

I did so. I had been commanded, as though I might have been a girl.

"Canka will hear of this," said Cuwignaka.

"See that he does," said Hci, angrily, and then pulled the kaiila away. The dust from the paws of the kaiila was in my mouth. "And now, get away from here! Return to the camp!" Little love was lost, I gathered, between Hci and Canka. Hci doubtless held Canka responsible, in some fashion, for Cuwignaka's freedom, and his presence among the Isbu, a presence which many among the Isbu, including Hci, found infuriating and shameful. In humiliating me, whom Canka treated with respect and honor, he was, in effect, demeaning Canka. On Canka's part, similarly, there was little affection borne toward Hci, largely because of the latter's hostility towards his brother, Cuwignaka. In Canka's view Hci's contempt for Cuwignaka was moe unbending, more extreme and rigid, than was called for. Cuwignaka lived and dressed as a woman; he was referred to as a woman and performed the labors of a woman. He was not permitted to mate among the Kaiila. What more did Hci want?

I myself suspected that the matter went deeper than Hci's tribal pride and sense of propriety. Alread Canka was a rising young warrior in teh tribe. Already, once, he had served as Blotanhunka, or the leader of the war party. Hci, in spite of

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his skills and courage, had not yet received such an honor. This may have stung Hci even more as he was the son of Mahpiyasapa, the civil chief of the Isbu. Such leadershipmight have seemed almost owed to one in his position. Yet it had been denied him. I suspected that the reason that Hci had never been given the command of the raiding party was not because he was not admired and liked among the Isbu, nor because
 
his trail and war skills were not respected, by because his judgment was not trusted. The reclessness with which he conducted hismelf and his insouciant disregard of personal danger did not augur well for his capacity to discharge the duties of a responsible leadership.

I did not think, incidentally, that Hci's hostility toward Canka had anything to do with Canka's acquistion of, and ownership of, Winyela, the lovely, white, red-haired female slave, the former Miss Millicent Aubrey-Welles, of Pennsylvania, whom Grunt had brought into the Barrens for Mahpiyasapa, his father. Hci had little use for such slaves, except occasionally to rape and quirt them. Mahpiyasapa, on the other hand, had been extremely displeased that Canka, despite being informed of the intended disposition of the white female, had asserted his war rights of the slave capture, and, desiring her mightily, had taken her for himself. Mahpiyasapa, incidentally, as I have mentioned, was the civil chief of the Isbu.

Among the red savages there are various sorts of chief. The primary types of chief are the war chief, the medicine chief and the civil chief. One may be, interestingly, only one sort of chief at a time. This, like the rotation of police powers among warrior societies, is a portion of the checks and balance. Other checks and blaances are such things as traditon and custom, the closeness of the governed and the governors, multiple-family interrelatednessess, the election of chiefs, the submission of significant matters to a council, and, ultimately, the feasibility of simply leaving the group, in greater or lesser numbers. Despotism, then, in virtue of the insitutions of the red savages, is impractical for them; this impracticality is a much surer guarantee of its absence in a society than the must fervid of negative rhetorics.

"Go," ordered Hci.

"Do you command me as Hci, or as a Sleen Soldier?" asked Cuwignaka, angrily.

"Go," said Hci, menacingly.

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"I obey you as a Sleen Soldier," said Cuwignaka. "I will go."

"When the hunt is mounted," said Hci to Cuwignaka, "you may not hunt. You will cut meat with the women."

"That is known to me," said Cuwignaka.

"For you are a woman," said Hci, sneeringly.

"No," said Cuwignaka. "I am a man."

"She is pretty, isn't she?" aske Hci of Grunt.

Grunt did not respond.

"If she does not please you," said Hci to Grunt, "beat her, as you would any other woman." He then turned his mount abruptly about. I heard its paws, suddenly, striking the turf, the sound rapidly diminishing.

"Do not pursue him," said Grunt to Cuwignaka.

"I am a man," said Cuwignaka, angrily.

"That is known to me," said Grunt.

"I must fight him," said Cuwignaka.

"No," said Grunt. "That would not be wise. He is one of the finest of the warriors of the Isbu."

"Rise up, Mitakola, my friend," said Cuwignaka to me. "He is gone."

I rose to my feet, whiping my face with my right forearms. Grunt handed me my clothing and moccasins. I donned them. I again mounted my kaiila.

Hci was now better than two pasangs away, at the finge of the kailiauk.

"Do you not wish to kill him?" aske Cuwignaka, bitterly.

I shrugged. "He was not attacking me," I said. "He was attacking Canka. " Too, I had accepted the collar. In doing thi, I had understood what I was doing. Hci, as would have been any other free person, had been fully within his rights. I had no delusions concerning my stauts. I was a slave.

"Do you not want to kill him?" asked Cuwignaka.

"No," I said.

"I want to kill him," said cuwignaka, bitterly.

"No, you do not," said Grunt. "He is of the Isbu, he is of your own band."

"But I do not have to like him," said Cuwignaka, suddenly, laughing.

"That is true." grinned Grunt.

I looked after Hci. He seemed to be a bitter, driven young man. This had come about, I gathered after his disfigurement. From that time on he had seemed to live for little more than killing and vengeance, not only against the Yellow

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Knives but against any enemy, or reputed enemy, of the Kaiila.

"He is mad," said Cuwignaka.

"He is bitter," I said.

It interested me that Hci had taken the attitued he had towards his disfigurement. Many warriors would have been little concerned about such a mark, particularly as it did not impair them in any significant fashion. Others might have welcomed it as a sign of bravery, a revelatory token of courage in close combat. Still others might have welcomed it as a savage, brutal enhancement to their appearance. but not so Hci. He, like not a few of the red savages, had been excessively vain about his appearance. Indee, sometimes a young fellow will have his hair greased and braided, and will dress himself in finery and paint, and simply ride about camp, parading, in effect, before his fellow villagers, and, in particular, the maidens. This perhaps somewhat vain but surely splendid sight is not usual in a camp. But no longer, now, would Hci venture forth in such a fashion, displaying himself, and his kaiila and regalia, in the impressive glory of such a primitive promenage. It seemed now he would scarcely show his face but to the men of the tribe, and, in particular, to his brothers of the Sleen Soldiers. The canhpi of the Yellow Knife had done more than strike flesh and bone; it had cut, too, deeply, perhaps unaccountably, or mysteriously, into the vanity, the pride and self image of a man. The difficulty of relating to the disfgurement had perhaps been particularly cruel in Hci's case because he had been, apparently, extremely good-looking before this. Too, of course, he had had five prospects, and had been rich and highly placed in the tribe. He was even the son of Mahpiyasapa, the civil chief of Isbu. Then it seemed he found himself, at least to his own mind, marred, irrevocably, in one bloody moment.

I could no longer see Hci now, in the dust from the kailiauk. Indeed, I could not even, yet, see the end of the great, long, moving mass of animals. Even at the speed at which the animals were traveling, it could take them between four and five Ahn to pass a given point.

The vanity of human beings is interesting. From my own point of view it seemed that Hci retained a great deal of what must once have been an unusual degree of savage handsomeness. The marking of his countenance, though surely not what a fellow would be likely to elect for cosmetic purposes, did not seem to me sufficiently serious to warrant his reaction

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to it. It might even have been regarded by some, as I have suggested, in the rude heraldry of the plains, as an enhancement to their appearance. Surely the maidens of the Isbu did not seem to find the mark objectionable. Many of them would have been much pleased had Hci, such a splendid warrior, deigned to pay them court. But no longer did Hci come to sit cross-legged outside their lodges, playing the love flute, to lure them forth under the Gorean moons.

"Do not have trouble with Hci," said Grunt to Cuwignaka. "Your brother, Canka, already has difficulties enough with Mahpiyasapa."

"You are right," said Cuwignaka.

I thought of the slender, lovely, red-haired Winyela, the former debutante from Pennsylvania. Canka's slave. She had been brought into the Barrens by Grunt, chained in his coffle, all the way from Kailiauk, near the Ihanke. She was to have been sold to Mahpiyasapa, who was interested in such a woman, white and red-haired, for five hides of the yellow kailiauk. Last year he had, in effect, pt in an order for such a woman, an order which Grunt had agreed, to the best of his ability, to fill.

Cuwignaka and I, and Grunt, then turned our attention to survey the Pte, the kailiauk.

"It seems there is no end to them," I said.

"They are glorious," said Cuwignaka.

"Yes," said Grunt, "glorious." Grunt, short-bodied, thick and muscular, still wore the broad-brimmed hat I remembered so well. Indeed, interestingly, I had never seen him without it.

"We must be going," said Cuwignaka. "We must return to camp."

I looked again in the direction in which Hci had disappeared. He had killed the man who had struck him.

"They are glorious!" exclaimed Cuwignaka, and then he turned his kaiila and descended the small rise, moving towards the camp.

Grunt and I remained for a moment on the rise, gazing on the awsome sight in the distance.

"You are sure?" I asked him.

"Yes," he said, "it is the Bento herd."

"It is early," I said. It was not due in the country of the Kaiila until Kantasawi, the moon in which the plums become red. This was only Takiyuhawi, the moon in which the tabuk

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rut, or, as some call it, Canpasapawi, the moon in which the chokecherries are ripe.