Magicians of Gor (31 page)

“Never would his footsteps have led to Cos unless there were an army at his

back,” said another.

“Hail Talena, Ubara of Ar,” I said.

“Well said,” said the Captain.

“Glory to Ar,” said on the men.

This sentiment was echoed by those present with the exception, I think, of the

captain, myself and, if I am not mistaken, Marcus.

“Search the shop,” said the officer.

(pg. 178) Three guardsmen then went into the back of the shop, and one climbed

the ladder to the second floor.

“Two many things of this sort have occurred,” said the captain to me, looking

about himself.

“Captain?” I asked.

“Yes,” he said. “More than the men know of.”

There was at that moment a girl’s scream, coming from the back room.

The shopkeeper cried out in misery.

“Captain!” called a man.

The captain then strode to the rear room. The shopkeeper, Marcus and myself

followed him.

In the back there were many ceramic articles about, vessels of numerous sorts,

on tiers, and stacks of shallow bowls. The ruffians who had assaulted the shop

had not reached the rear room. Further it seemed likely the merchant was not as

poorly off as might have been supposed.

“See, Captain?” said one of the men, lifting up the lid of a narrow, oblong

chest. Within it, huddled there, looking up, over her right shoulder, terrified,

there crouched a girl. Her veil had become somewhat disarranged, and in such a

way that one could see her lips and mouth.

“Cover yourself, immodest girl!” scolded the shopkeeper. She pulled the veil

more closely about her features. “She is my daughter,” said the shopkeeper. She

was probably not more than sixteen or seventeen years old.

“Do you always keep her in a chest?” asked the captain, angrily. Keeping female

slaves in small confines, of course, in properly ventilated chests, in slave

boxes, and such, is not that unusual, but this girl, as far as we knew, was

free. Apparently the chest had not been locked, and, too, of course, she was

clothed, rather than naked, as slaves are usually kept in such places. To be

sure, they are sometimes granted a sheet or blanket for comfort or warmth.

“Of course not,” said the shopkeeper, frightened. “But when the ruffians came to

the shop she was in the back and I told her to hide in the chest.”

“Ruffians?” asked the officer.

“Yes, Captain,” said the man.

“And yet you did not have her emerge from the chest when the danger was past,”

observed the officer.

“It slipped my mind,” said the shopkeeper.

“Of course,” said the captain, ironically.

The shopkeeper was silent.

(pg. 179) “You feared us, your defenders, your neighbors and allies,” said the

captain.

“Forgive me, Captain,” said the shopkeeper, “but there are the levies, and

such.”

“And have you concealed your daughter from the authorities, in such matters?”

asked the captain.

“Of course not, Captain,” he said. “I am a law-abiding man. She is on the

registries.”

“There is nothing upstairs,” said the man who had come down the ladder from the

second floor.

The girl made no attempt to leave the chest. I did not know if this was because

she was mature enough, and female enough, to understand that she had not yet

been given permission to do so, or if there were a deeper reason.

“Turus, Banius,” said the captain, addressing two of the men, “clear the front

of the shop, remove the bodies, put them on the street.”

“May I submit, Captain,” I said, “that it might be preferable to leave the

bodies in the shop until they can be properly disposed of. If they are displayed

on the street, the power of those of the delta might be too manifestly

displayed.”

“Excellent,” said the officer. “Desist,” he said to the men.

“I am considering my report,” said the officer to the merchant. “It seems that

some good fellows of Cos, esteemed mercenaries, in the service of her Ubar, with

all good will and innocence, entered this shop, to purchase wares for loved

ones, and were treacherously set upon by assailants, some twenty in number.”

“They came pretending to be collectors,” said the merchant, “to rob me under

this pretense, and dissatisfied with my inability to fill their purses, set out

to destroy the shop and goods, and then two fellows whom I did not know, their

features concealed in wind scarves, entered and did what you see in the front of

the shop.”

“I like my version better,” said the captain.

“As you will,” said the merchant.

“I do not care for what occurred here,” said the captain, “and I find you

uncooperative.”

“I will cooperate in any way I can,” said the merchant.

The captain then went to the sides of the back room and suddenly, angrily,

kicked and struck goods about, shattering countless articles.

“Stop!” cried the merchant.

The captain swept kraters from a shelf.

In futility did the merchant wring his hands.

“I suspect,” said the captain, overturning a stack of bowls, (pg. 180) treading

upon several of them, “you are in league with the brigands, that your shop

served as a trap!”

“No!” cried the shopkeeper, anguished. “Would I have myself ruined. Stop! I beg

you, stop!”

“Impalement would be too good for you, traitor of Ar!” said the officer.

“No!” wailed the merchant.

“If your story is true,” said the officer, thrusting over a rack of ceramics,

and a cabinet, “why were these goods, not destroyed, as well?” He hurled a kylix

to the wall. In his anger, his destructive fury, doubtless the belated eruption

of precedent frustrations, he kicked articles about, and trod even on bowls.

Even his ankles and legs were bloodied.

“They did not come so far,” said the merchant. “But you, it seems, are

determined to complete their work.”

“Do you have rope, or hammers and nails?” asked the officer.

“Of course, Captain,” said the man.

“Strip her,” said the captain to one of the men.

“No!” cried the merchant. He was restrained by two guardsmen.

The girl, crying out, shrieking, pulled half from the chest, had her veil and

clothing torn from her.

She was then thrust down again, now naked, trembling, in the chest.

“No!” wept the shopkeeper, throwing himself to his knees before the officer.

“This will teach you to put her on the registries,” said the officer.

“She is on the registries!” wept the merchant.

“I have found hammers, and nails,” said the other of the guardsmen.

“Please, no!” cried the merchant.

“Is this where free men of Ar belong, asked the captain, “at the feet of Cos?”

“Get off your knees!” said one of the guardsmen.

The merchant could not move, but sobbed helplessly.

“Nail shut the chest,” said the officer.

“I will say anything you want,” said the shopkeeper, looking up piteously at the

officer, “anything! I will render whatever testimony you desire. I will sign

anything, anything!”

The room rang with the blow of the hammers.

“It will not be necessary,” said the officer. The merchant collapsed.

The lid was no hammered shut on the chest.

The officer left the fellow on the floor of the rear room, and signaled for two

of his men to pick up the chest and follow him.

(pg. 181) He then, followed by the rest of us, including the two fellows with

the chest, threaded his way through the front of the shop and to the street

outside.

“Captain!” said one of the men outside, pointing to the exterior wall of the

building.

There, on the wall, scratched on the stone, was a delka.

The captain cried out with rage.

“I am sure that was not there when we entered, Captain,” said one of the

guardsmen.

“No, it was not,” said the captain.

That was true. As it might be recalled, Marcus and I had entered the shop after

the captain and his men, having been on our rounds in the neighborhood.

Some men were about, but seeing the captain and his men, and Marcus and myself,

hurried away, perhaps fearing that the delka might be blamed on them.

I did not doubt but what some of these folks had peeped within the shop and seen

the bodies about. That would have been easy enough to do when we were in the

back of the shop.

The two fellows carrying the chest put it down.

“I fear they are everywhere,” said the captain.

“Who?” I asked.

“The Delta Brigade,” he said.

I myself, in a paga tavern or two, some days ago, had dropped this expression,

mentioning it as though it were one I had heard somewhere, and was curious to

understand. I was pleased to note that it was no common currency in Ar. Such are

the wings of rumors.

“You think the afternoon’s attack was the work of this Delta Brigade?” I asked.

“Surely,” he said.

“Who are they?” I asked.

“Dissidents, or renegades, doubtless,” said the captain, “traitors to both Cos

and Ar.”

“I see,” I said.

“I suspect veterans of the delta campaign,” he said, “or scions of disaffected

cities, such as Ar’s Station.”

“I am from Ar’s Station,” said Marcus.

“But you are an auxiliary,” said the captain.

“True,” said Marcus.

“Perhaps Marlenus of Ar has returned,” I said. I thought that an excellent rumor

to start.

“No,” said the captain. “I do not think so. Marlenus was not, as far as we know,

in the delta. I think it is more likely to be (pg. 182) veterans of the delta,

of which there are many in the city, or fellows from the north, from Ar’s

Station or somewhere.”

“Perhaps you are right,” I said. The captain was a shrewd fellow, and thusly an

unlikely candidate to enlist in my efforts to initiate rumors, or at least this

particular one. To be sure, even a fellow of genuine probity, one who is

unlikely to nourish, reproduce, transmit, or credit a rumor in its infancy, may

find himself uncritically accepting it later on, when it becomes “common

knowledge,” so to speak. Are we not all the victims of hearsay, even with

respect to many of our most profound “truths”? Of our thousands and hundreds of

thousands, of such “truths,” how many have we personally earned? How many of us

can determine the distance of a planet or the structure of a molecule?

“I will have a wagon sent for the bodies,” said the captain.

“Yes, Captain,” I said.

The captain regarded the delka, scrawled on the wall, with anger.

“It is only a scratching, a mark,” I said. “No,” he said. “It is more. It is a

defiance of Cos, and of Ar!”

“Of Ar?” I asked.

“As she is today,” he said.

“But perhaps not of the old Ar,” I said.

“Perhaps not,” he said.

“You have met men of Ar in battle?” I asked.

“Yes,” he said. “And it is a mark of the old Ar, the Ar I knew in war, the Ar of

spears and standards, of rides and marches, of dust and trumpets, of tarns and

tharlarion, the Ar of imperialism, of glory, of valor, and pride. That is why it

is so dangerous. It is a recollection of the old Ar.”

“The true Ar?”

“If you wish,” he said. Then he exclaimed, angrily. “They have been defeated!

She is dead! She is gone! How dare they remember her?”

He looked up and down the street. It now seemed deserted. I did not doubt but

what word of what had occurred had spread.

“How dare they resist?” he asked.

“There seem few here now,” I said.

“They are there, somewhere,” he said.

“Perhaps,” I said.

“Guard yourselves,” he said.

“Thank you, Captain,” I said.

“They may be anywhere,” he said.

“Surely there are only a few,” I said, “perhaps a few madmen (pg. 183) who

cannot understand the barest essentials of the most obvious realities, political

and prudential.”

“They are verr,” he said. “But not all of them. Some pretend to be verr. Some

are sleen, disguised in the skins of verr.”

“Or larls,” I said, “patient, unreconciled, dangerous, capable of action.”

“Cos, too, has her larls,” said the captain.

“I do not doubt it,” I said.

“Had I my way,” he said, “we would have finished Ar. She would have been done

with then, forever. There would be nothing here now but ashes and salt. Even her

name would be excised from the monuments, from the documents, from the

histories. It would be as though she had not been.”

“It is hard for a man to be great who does not have great enemies,” I said.

“And so Cos and Ar require one another, that each may be greater than they could

otherwise be?” he asked.

“Perhaps,” I said.

“There was no glory here,” he said. “We did not win this victory in storm and

fire, surmounting walls, breaching gates, winning Ar street by street, house by

house. It was not we who defeated Ar. It was her putative own who betrayed her,

in jealousy and intrigue, in ambition and greed. Ideas and lies defeated Ar. It

was done through the sowing of confusion, the propagation of self-doubt and

guilt, all suitably bedizened in the meretricious rhetorics of morality. We

taught them that evil was good, and good evil, that strength was weakness, and

weakness strength, that health was sickness, and sickness health. We made them

distrust themselves, and taught them to believe that their most basic instincts