Nomads of Gor (36 page)

"Here, here!" he cried cheerily, hauling the exhausted

Aphris to her knees "There is work to be done, !"

She looked up at him, the thong still on her neck, her

wrists bound. Her eyes seemed dazed.

"There are bask to be groomed," he informed her, "and

their horns and hoofs must be polished there is fodder to be

fetched and dung to be gathered the wagon must be wiped

and the wheels greased and there is water to be brought

from the stream some four pasangs. away and meat to ham-

mer and cook for supper! hurry! hurry, Lazy Girl!"

Then he leaned back and laughed his Tuchuk laugh, slap-

ping his thighs.

Elizabeth Cardwell was removing the thong from the girl's

neck and unbinding her wrists. "Come along," she said,

kindly. "I will show you."

Aphris stood up, wobbling, still dazed. She turned her eyes

on Elizabeth, whom she seemed to see then for the first time.

"Your accent," said Aphris, slowly. "You are barbarian." She

said it with a kind of horror.

 
She turned in fury and followed Elizabeth Cardwell away.

 
After this Kamchak and I left the wagon and wandered

 
about, stopping at one of the slave wagons for a bottle of

 
Paga, which, while wandering about, we killed between us.

 
This year, as it turned out, the Wagon Peoples had done

 
exceedingly well in the games of Love War a bit of news

 
we picked up with the Paga and about seventy percent of

 
the Turian maidens had been led slave from the stakes to

 
which they had been manacled. In some years I knew the

 
percentages were rather the other way about. It apparently

 
made for zestful competition. We also heard that the wench

 
Hereena, of the First Wagon, had been won by a Turian

 
officer representing the house of Saphrar of the Merchants,

 
to whom, for a fee, he presented her. I gathered that she

 
would become another of his dancing girls. "A bit of per-

 
fume and silk will be good for that wench," stated

 
Kamchak. It seemed strange to think of her, so wild and

 
insolent, arrogant on the back of her kaiila, now a perfumed,

 
silken slave of Turians. `'She could use a bit of whip and

 
steel, that wench," Kamchak muttered between swallows of

 
Paga, pretty much draining the bottle. It was too bad, I

 
thought, but at least I supposed there would be one fellows

 
among the wagons, the young man Harold, he whom the girl

 
had so abused, he who had not yet won the Courage Scar,

 
who would be just as pleased as not that she, with all her

 
contempt and spleen, was now delightfully salted away in

 
bangles and bells behind the high, thick walls of a Turian's

 
pleasure garden.

 
Kamchak had circled around and we found ourselves back

 
at the slave wagon.

 
We decided to wager to see who would get the second

 
bottle of Paga.

 
"What about the flight of birds?" asked Kamchak.

 
"Agreed," I said, "but I have first choice."

 
"Very well," he said.

 
I knew, of course, that it was spring and, in this hemi-

 
sphere, most birds, if there were any migrating, would be

 
moving south. "South," I said.

 
"North," he said.

 
We then waited about a minute, and I saw several birds

 
river gulls flying north.

 
"Those are Vosk gulls," said Kamchak, "In the spring,

 
when the ice breaks in the Vosk, they fly north."

 
I fished some coins out of my pouch for the Paga.

     
"The first southern migrations of meadow kites," he said,

     
"have already taken place. The migrations of the forest hurlit

     
and the horned aim do not take place until later in the

     
spring. This is the time that the Vosk gulls fly."

     
"Oh," I said.

     
Singing Tuchuk songs, we managed to make it back to the

     
wagon.

     
Elizabeth had the meat roasted, though it was now consid-

     
erably overdone.

     
"The meat is overdone," said Kamchak.

     
"They are both stinking drunk," said Aphris of Turia.

     
I looked at her. Both of them were beautiful. "No," I

     
corrected her, "gloriously inebriated."

     
Kamchak was looking closely at the girls, leaning forward,

     
squinting.

     
I blinked a few Ames.

     
"Is anything wrong?" asked Elizabeth Cardwell.

     
I noted that there was a large welt on the side of her face,

     
that her hair was ripped up a bit and that there were five

     
long scratches on the left side of her face.

     
"No," I said.

     
Aphris of Turia appeared in even worse shape. She had

     
surely lost more than one handful of hair. There were teeth

     
marks in her left arm and, if I was not mistaken, her right

     
eye was ringed and discolored.

     
"The meat is overdone," grumbled Kamchak. A master

     
takes no interest in the squabbles of slaves, it being beneath

     
him. He of course would not have approved had one of the

     
girls been maimed, blinded or disfigured.

     
"Have the bask been tended?" asked Kamchak.

     
"Yes," said Elizabeth firmly.

     
Kamchak looked at Aphris. "Have the bask been tended?"

     
he asked.

     
She looked up suddenly, her eyes bright with tears. She

     
cast an angry look at Elizabeth. "Yes," she said, "they have

     
been tended."

     
"Good," said Kamchak, "good." Then he pointed at the

     
meat. "It is overdone," he said.

     
"You were hours late," said Elizabeth.

     
"Hours," repeated Aphris.

     
"It is overdone," said Kamchak.

     
"I shall roast fresh meat," said Elizabeth, getting up, and

     
she did so. Aphris only sniffed.

     
When the meat was ready Kamchak ate his fill, and drank

  
down, too, a flagon of bosk milk; I did the same, though the

  
milk, at least for me, did not sit too well with the Paga of the

  
afternoon.

  
Kamchak, as he often did, was sitting on what resembled a

  
gray rock, rather squarish, except that the corners tended to

  
be a bit rounded. When I had first seen this thing, heaped

  
with other odds and ends in one corner of the wagon, some

  
of the odds and ends being tankards of jewels and small,

  
heavy chests filled with golden tarn disks, I had thought it

  
merely a rock. Once, when rummaging through his things,

  
Karnchak had kicked it across the rug for me to look at. I

  
was surprised at the way it bounced on the rug and, when I

  
picked it up, I was interested to see how light it was. It was

  
clearly not a rock. It was rather leathery and had a "rained

  
surface. I was a bit reminded of some of the loose, tumbled

  
rocks I had once glimpsed in certain abandoned portions of

  
the place of Priest-Kings, far beneath the Sardar. Among

  
such rocks it would not have been noticed. "What do you

  
make of it?" Kamchak asked.

  
"Interesting," I observed.

  
"Yes," said he, "I thought so." He held out his hands and I

  
tossed the object back. "I have had it for some time," he

  
said. "It was given to me by two travelers."

  
"Oh," I said.

  
When Kamchak had finished his freshly roasted meat and

  
his flagon of bask milk, he shook his head and rubbed his

  
nose.

  
He looked at Miss Cardwell. "Tenchika and Dina are

  
gone," said he. "You may sleep once more in the wagon."

  
Elizabeth cast a grateful look at him. I gathered that the

  
ground under the wagon was hard.

  
"Thank you," she said.

  
"I thought he was your master," remarked Aphris.

  
"Master," added Elizabeth, with a withering look at

  
Aphris, who smiled.

  
I now began to understand why there were often problems

  
in a wagon with more than one girl. Still, Tenchika and Dina

  
had not quarreled very much. Perhaps this was because

  
Tenchika's heart was elsewhere, in the wagon of Albrecht of

  
the Kassars.

  
"Who, may I ask," asked Aphris, "were Tenchika and

  
Dina?"

  
"Slaves, Turian wenches," said Kamchak.

  
"They were sold," Elizabeth informed Aphris.

     
"Oh," said Aphris. Then she looked at Kamchak. "I do not

     
suppose I shall be fortunate enough to be sold?"

     
"She would probably bring a high price," pointed out

     
Elizabeth, hopefully.

     
"Higher than a barbarian surely," remarked Aphris.

     
"Do not fret, Little Aphris," said Kamchak, "when I am

     
finished with you I shall if it pleases me put you on the

     
block in the public slave wagon."

     
"I shall look forward to the day," she said.

     
"On the other hand," said Kamchak, "I may feed you to

     
the kaiila."

     
At this the Turian maiden trembled slightly, and looked down.

     
"I doubt that you are good for much," Kamchak said, "but

 
    
kaiila feed."

     
Aphris looked up angrily.

     
Elizabeth laughed and clapped her hands.