Players of Gor (44 page)

An attempt on my life had been made in Port Kar. That attempt had seemed tied in, somehow, with Brundisium. this speculation had been amply confirmed in my dealings with the Lady Yanina and Flaminius. It had seemed likely, further, to me, that there must then be some connection between Brundisium and either the Priest-Kings, or Kurii. Over the past weeks, for

page 264

several reasons, it had come to seem more and more likely to me that it was not the Priest-Kings who had any special dealings with, or interest in, Brundisium. I was then forced to the conclusion that it must be the Kurii who were active in Brundisium, that their subversions must be in effect in that city as once in Corcyrus. Now, however, I found myself forced to abandon what had hitherto seemed a coercive hypothesis.

There was a wild scream of a charging sleen below and its sudden, frightened squeal, and I saw it flung, half bitten apart, to the side. The two other sleen charged, too, fastening themselves like eels on the chained creature. The crowd roared. I saw blood in torrents run down the legs and arms of the attacked creature. It rolled in the scattered, bloody sand, twisting and fighting, the sleen hanging to it. I heard the chain, the screams of the crowd, the howls of the beasts.

"Pretty! Pretty! Bet! Bet!" cried the creature next to me, clinging to the bars.

Kurii, it now seemed clear to me, no more than Priest-Kings, held any special privileges of influence or power in Brundisium.

The attacked creature seized the sleen clinging to its leg and, from behind, with one paw, broke its neck. It then tore the other sleen from its arm and thrust its jaws open and thrust its great clawed paw deep into the creature's throat, down through its throat, forcing its way into its body, clawing and grasping and tore forth, up through the creature's own mouth, part of its lungs. It then flung the creature down at its fee, threw back its head, its fangs and tongue bright with fresh blood, and howled its defiance to the hot noonday sun, to the towers of Brundisium, and the crowd.

"Three times!" cried the creature clinging to the bars, beside me, "three times! It lives again!"

This was the third time, apparently, the creature had survived the pit.

"Bet! Bet! Pay me! Pay me!" cried the creature near me, clinging to the bars.

I saw soldiers now, warily, with leveled crossbows, and with spears, approaching the creature. They threw ropes upon it. It now seemed scarcely to notice them. Its head was down. It was feeding on the bodies of one of the sleen before it.

No, it did not seem likely to me that Kurii were in power in Brundisium.

The creature beside me released the bars, slipping down to the table, from the surface of which it leaped to the floor. It then

page 265

went back to its straw in the corner, poking about in it for scraps of food.

I stayed at the window for a time, until, half led, half dragged, prodded, the creature below was conducted form the pit. It left, snarling, but apparently docile. It still dragged part of one of sleen behind it.

No, it seemed clear now that Kurii were not in power in Brundisium.

The creature now leaving the pit, bloodied, furrowing the sand behind it, dragging part of a sleen, was a Kur.

I found this, in its way, of course, quite disconcerting. An entire architecture of explanatory hypotheses, of judicious speculations, had collapsed. It seemed now that neither Priest-Kings nor Kurii had any special connection with Brundisium. What then could be the explanation for the attempt on my life in Port Kar, and for the obvious interest of certain parties in Brundisium in me? What, if anything, could be my importance to them? What, too, was the meaning of the messages I had intercepted? They had apparently been intended for certain parties in Ar. I understood nothing. I did not know what to think. One thing, of course, was quite clear. I was in a cell in Brundisium, at the disposition of my captors.

I withdrew from the window, and leaped down to the floor. I looked back again at the high window; then I put the table back in the center of the cell. I put it between two benches. IN such a cell, a humane one as Gorean cells went, the table and benches served a practical purpose. They helped to keep food out of the reach of urts, and, at night, could be used for sleeping.

"Back against the wall, on your knees!" said a voice.

The representative of the urt people and I complied. It was time to be fed.

The first day in this captivity I had lurked near the bars, hoping to be able to get my hands on the jailer. I had, in consequence of this, not been fed that day. I obeyed promptly enough the next day. I wanted the food. The evening of my second day in this captivity, which was the fourth following my capture, the representative of the urt people had been thrust in with me. I did not much welcome his company. He was, however, familiar with the routines of the prison.

The jailer looked into the cell. "The table has been moved," he said. He could tell this, I assumed, from the markings in the dust on the floor. It had not occurred to me that there might be any objection to this. If I had thought there would have been, I would pave posted the representative of the urt people near the

page 266

bars and, presumably warned by him in time of any approach on the part of a jailer, replaced the table carefully in its original position. I hoped this new offense, if offense it was, would not result in the withholding of food. I wanted it, what there was of it.

The jailer put the two trays on the floor outside the bars, and, with his foot, thrust them through the low, flat opening, like a flat rectangle, at the base of the latticework of bars. he had not yet left. We could not yet approach the food. "Bosk of Port Kar," he laughed, "kneeling and waiting for food!"

I did not respond to him. I wanted the food. I was pleased that he had not objected to the movement of the table. Then it occurred to me that it was interesting, too, that the table was in the cell. Gorean keepers are not always that considerate of their charges. Why had we not been chained close to the wall, and forced to fight with insects and rodents for our food? Gorean prisoners are seldom pampered, either of the male or female variety. I wondered if the table was in the room for a purpose, perhaps to have permitted me to see what had occurred outside in the courtyard.

The jailer then left.

The representative of the urt people regarded me, narrowly, furtively, fearfully.

I rose to my feet and fetched my food. I put it on the table, and sat down at the table, on one of the benches.

The representative of the urt people then scurried to his food and, by one edge of the tray, with a scraping noise of metal on stone, dragged it quickly over to his straw. He ate hurriedly, watching g me carefully. He feared, I suppose, that I might take his food from him. To be sure, it would not have been difficult to do, had I wished to do so.

There was then a growling in the corridor outside of the bars, and a scratching of claws on stone. I also heard several men and the sound of arms. IN a moment or two the Kur from the courtyard below, no longer dragging the part of a sleen, perhaps having finished it, or having had it dragged from him, was ushered past our cell, and prodded, its ropes then removed, a chain still on its neck, into a cell down the way. It had moved slowly past us, slowly and stiffly, as though in great pain. It now, now that it was no longer fighting for its life, seemed exhausted and weak. Much of its fur was matted with dried blood. I did not think it would be likely to survive another such bout in the courtyard. As it had passed our cell it had looked in at me. In its eyes there had been baleful hatred. I was human.

page 267

I looked back at the representative of the urt people. He suddenly scurried back to his straw, crouching on it, looking up at me. He had been approaching the table quite closely. He had finished his meal. It seemed reasonable to suppose then that he had intended, or hoped, his own food gone, to steal some of mine, that to be accomplished while my attention was distracted by the passage of the Kur in the hall. I smiled. The little creature was doubtless indeed familiar with the routines, the possibilities and opportunities, of prison life.

It turned its eyes away from mine, not wanting to meet them. It pretended to be examining is straw for lice.

It was one of the urt people. It had a narrow, elongated face and rather large, ovoid eyes. It was narrow-shouldered and narrow-chested. It had long, thin arms and short, spindly legs. It commonly walked, or hurried, bent over, its knuckles often on the ground, its head often moving from side to side. This low gait commonly kept it inconspicuous among the large, migratory urt packs with which it commonly moved. Sometimes such packs pass civilized areas and observers are not even aware of the urt people traveling with them. The urt packs provide them with cover and protection. For some reason, not clear to me at that time, the urts seldom attack them. Sometimes it 3would rear up, straightly, unexpectedly, looking about itself, and then drop back to a smaller, more bent-over position. It was capable of incredible stillness and then sudden, surprising bursts of movement.

I made a small clicking noise, to attract its attention. Immediately, alertly, it turned its head toward me.

I beckoned for it to approach.

It suddenly reared upright, quizzically.

"Come here," I said, beckoning to it.

When it stood upright it was about three and a half feet tall.

"do not be afraid," I said. I took a slice of hard larma from my tray. This is a firm, single-seeded, applelike fruit. It is quite unlike the segmented, juicy larma. It is sometimes called, and perhaps more aptly, the pit fruit, because of its large single stone. I held it up so that he could see it. The urt people, I understood were fond of pit fruit. Indeed, it was for having stolen such fruit from a state orchard that he had been incarcerated. He had been netted, put in a sack and brought here. That had been more than six months ago. I had learned these things from the jailer when he had thrust the creature in with me. The creature approached, warily. Then it lifted its long arm and pointed a long index finger at the fruit. "Bet! Bet!" it said. "Pay! Pay!"

page 268

"No," I said. "I made not bet with you." It was referring, I gathered, to the Kurii bating which had taken place this morning in the courtyard, visible from our window. It had probably understood the concepts of betting and paying or not.

"I do not owe this to you," I said. "It is mine."

The creature shrank back a bit, frightened.

"But I might give it to you," I said.

It looked at me.

I broke off a piece of the pit fruit and handed it to him. He ate it quickly, watching me.

"Come here," I said. "Up here." I indicated the surface of the table.

He leapt up to the surface of the table, squatting there.

I broke off another bit of the hard fruit and handed it to him. "What is your name?" I asked.

He uttered a kind of hissing squeal. I supposed that might be his name. The urt people, as I understood it, commonly communicate among themselves in the pack by means of such signals. How complicated or sophisticated those signals might be I did not know. They did tend to resemble the natural noises of urts.
 
In this I supposed they tended to make their presence among the urts less obvious to outside observers and perhaps, too, less obvious, or obtrusive, to the urts themselves. Too, however, I knew the urt people could, and did upon occasion, as in their rare contacts with civilized folk, communicate in a type of Gorean, many of the words evidencing obvious linguistic corruptions for others, interestingly, apparently closely resembling archaic Gorean, a language not spoken popularly on Gor, except by members of the caste of Initiates, for hundreds of years. I had little difficulty, however, in understanding him. He seemed an intelligent creature, and his Gorean was doubtless quite different from the common trade Gorean of the urt people. It had doubtless been much refined and improved in the prison. The urt people learn quickly. They are rational. Some people keep them as pets. I think they are, or at one time were, a form of human being. Probably long ago, as some forms of urts became commensals with human beings, so, too, some humans may have become commensals, traveling companions, sharers at the same table, so to speak, with the migratory urt packs.

"What do they call you here?" I asked.

"Nim, Nim," it said.

"I cam called Bosk," I said.

page 269

"Bosk, Bosk," it said. "nice Bosk. Pretty Bosk. More larma! More larma!"

I gave the creature more of the hard larma.

"Good Bosk, nice Bosk," it said.

I handed it another bit of larma.

"Bosk want escape?" it asked.

"Yes," I said.

"Bad men want do terrible things to Bosk," it said.

"What?" I asked.

"Nim Nim afraid talk," it said.

I did not press the creature.

"Few cells have table," it said, fearfully. "Bosk not chained."

I nodded. "I think I understand," I said. Not being chained, and because of the table, I had been able to witness the cruel spectacle in the courtyard. That I supposed now, given the hints of the small creature, was perhaps intended to give me something to think about. I shuddered. Much hatred must I be borne in this place.