Nomads of Gor (22 page)

     
"Three points for each," announced the judge.

     
"We are finished," I said to Albrecht. "It is a tie. There is

     
no winner."

    
 
He held his saddle on his rearing kaiila. "There will be a

     
winner!" he cried. "Facing the lancer"

     
"I will not ride," I said.

     
"I claim victory and the woman" shouted Albrecht.

     
"It will be his," said the judge, "if you do not ride."

     
I would ride.

     
Elizabeth, unmoving, faced me, some fifty yards away.

     
This is the most difficult of the lance sports. The thrust

     
must be made with exquisite lightness, the lance loose in the

     
hand, the hand not in the retaining thong, but allowing the

     
lance to slip back, then when clear, moving it to the left and,

     
hopefully, past the living wand. If well done, this is a delicate

     
and beautiful stroke. If clumsily done the girl will be scarred,

     
or perhaps slain.

     
Elizabeth stood facing me, not frightened, but seemingly

     
rather put upon. Her fists were even clenched.

     
I hoped that she would not be injured. When she had stood

     
sideways I had favored the left, so that if the stroke was in

   
  
error, the lance would miss the tospit altogether; but now, as

     
she faced me, the stroke must be made for the center of the

     
fruit; nothing else would do.

     
The gait of the kaiila was swift and even.

     
A cry went up from the crowd as I passed Elizabeth, the

     
tospit on the point of the lance.

     
Warriors were pounding on the lacquered shields with their

     
lances. Men shouted. I heard the thrilled cries of slave girls.

     
I turned to see Elizabeth waver, and almost faint, but she

     
did not do so.

     
Albrecht the Kassar, angry, lowered his lance and set out

     
for his girl.

     
In an instant he had passed her, the tospit riding the lance

     
tip.

     
The girl was standing perfectly still, smiling.

The crowd cheered as well for Albrecht.

 
Then they were quiet, for the judge was rushing to the

 
lance of Albrecht, demanding it.

 
Albrecht the Kassar, puzzled, surrendered the weapon.

 
"There is blood on the weapon," said the judge.

 
"She was not touched," cried Albrecht.

 
"I was not touched!" cried the air!.

 
The judge showed the point of the lance. There was a tiny

 
stain of blood at its tip, and too there was a smear of blood

 
on the skin of the small yellowish-white fruit.

 
"Open your mouth, slave," demanded the judge.

 
The girl shook her head.

 
"Do it," said Albrecht.

 
She did so and the judge, holding her teeth apart roughly

 
with his hands, peered within. There was blood in her mouth.

 
The girl had been swallowing it, rather than show she had

 
been struck.

 
It seemed to me she was a brave, fine girl.

 
It was with a kind of shock that I suddenly realized that

 
she, and Dina of Turia, now belonged to Kamchak and

 
myself.

 
The two girls, while Elizabeth Cardwell looked on angrily,

 
knelt before Kamchak and myself, lowering their heads,

 
lifting and extending their arms, wrists crossed. Kamchak,

 
chuckling, leaped down from his kaiila and quickly, with

 
binding fiber, bound their wrists. He then put a leather thong

 
on the neck of each and tied the free ends to the pommel of

 
his saddle. Thus secured, the girls knelt beside the paws of his

 
kaiila. I saw Dina of Turia look at me. In her eyes, soft with

 
tears, I read the timid concession that I was her master.

 
"I do not know what we need with all these slaves,"

 
Elizabeth Cardwell was saying.

 
"Be silent," said Kamchak, "or you will be branded."

 
Elizabeth Cardwell, for some reason, looked at me in

 
fury, rather than Kamchak. She threw back her head, her

 
little nose in the air, her brown hair bouncing on her shoul-

 
dcrs.

 
Then for no reason I understood, I took binding fiber and

 
bound her wrists before her body, and, as Kamchak had

 
done with the other girls, put a thong on her neck and tied it

 
to the pommel of my saddle.

 
It was perhaps my way of reminding her, should she

 
forget, that she too was a slave.

     
"Tonight, Little Barbarian," said Kamchak, winking at

     
her, "you will sleep chained under the wagon."

     
Elizabeth stifled a cry of rage.

 
    
Then Kamchak and I, on kaiila-back, made our way back

     
to our wagon, leading the bound girls.

     
"The Season of Little Grass is upon us," said Kamchak.

     
"Tomorrow the herds will move toward Turia."

     
I nodded. The Wintering was done. There would now be

     
the third phase of the Omen Year, the Return to Turia.

     
It was now, perhaps, I hoped, that I might learn the

     
answer to the riddles which had not ceased to disturb me, that

     
I might learn the answer to the mystery of the message

     
collar, perhaps the answer to the numerous mysteries which

     
had attended it, and perhaps, at last, find some clue, as I had

     
not yet with the wagons, to the whereabouts or fate of the

     
doubtless golden spheroid that was or had been the last egg

     
of Priest-Kings.

     
"I will take you to Turia," said Kamchak.

     
"Good," I said.

     
I had enjoyed the Wintering, but now it was done. The

     
bask were moving south with the coming of the spring. 1 and

     
the wagons would go with them.

 
There was little doubt that I, in the worn, red tunic of a

 
warrior, and Kamchak, in the black leather of the Tuchuks,

 
seemed somewhat out of place at the banquet of Saphrar,

 
merchant of Turia.

 
"It is the spiced brain of the Turian vulo," Saphrar was

 
explaining.

 
It was somewhat surprising to me that Kamchak and I,

 
being in our way ambassadors of the Wagon Peoples, were

 
entertained in the house of Saphrar, the merchant, rather

 
than in the palace of Phanius Turmus, Administrator of

 
Turia. Kamchak's explanation was reasonably satisfying.

 
There were apparently two reasons, the official reason and

 
the real reason. The official reason, proclaimed by Phanius

 
Turmus, the Administrator, and others high in the govern-

 
ment, was that those of the Wagon Peoples were unworthy

 
to be entertained in the administrative palace; the real rea-

 
son, apparently seldom proclaimed by anyone, was that the

 
true power in Turia lay actually with the Caste of Mer-

 
chants, chief of whom was Saphrar, as it does in many cities.

 
The Administrator, however, would not be uninformed. His

 
presence at the banquet was felt in the person of his plenipo-

 
tentiary, Kamras, of the Caste of Warriors, a captain, said to

 
be Champion of Turia.

 
I shot the spiced vulo brain into my mouth on the tip of a

 
golden eating prong, a utensil, as far as I knew, unique to

 
Turia. I took a large swallow of fierce Paga, washing it down

 
as rapidly as possible. I did not much care for the sweet,

      
syrupy wines of Turia, flavored and sugared to the point where

      
one could almost leave one's fingerprint on their surface.

      
It might be mentioned, for those unaware of the fact, that

      
the Caste of Merchants is not considered one of the tradi-

      
tional five High Castes of Gor the Initiates, Scribes, Physi-

      
cians, Builders and Warriors. Most commonly, and doubtless

      
unfortunately, it is only members of the five high castes who

      
occupy positions on the High Councils of the cities. Nonethe-

      
less, as might be expected, the gold of merchants, in most

      
cities, exercises its not imponderable influence, not always

      
in so vulgar a form as bribery and gratuities, but more often in

      
the delicate matters of extending or refusing to extend credit

      
in connection with the projects, desires or needs of the High

      
Councils. There is a saying on Gor, "Gold has no caste." It is

      
a saying of which the merchants are fond. Indeed, secretly

      
among themselves, I have heard, they regard themselves as the

      
highest caste on Gor, though they would not say so for fear

      
of rousing the indignation of other castes. There would be

      
something, of course, to be said for such a claim, for the

      
merchants are often indeed in their way, brave, shrewd,

      
skilled men, making long journeys, venturing their goods,

      
risking caravans, negotiating commercial agreements, among

      
themselves developing and enforcing a body of Merchant

      
Law, the only common legal arrangements existing among

      
the Gorean cities. Merchants also, in effect, arrange and

 
     
administer the four great fairs that take place each year near

      
the Sardar Mountains. I say "in effect" because the fairs are

      
nominally under the direction of a committee of the Caste of