Raiders of Gor (26 page)

If he had known this, I asked myself, why had he not spoken before?

“Perhaps,” I asked, “Samos will propose that we now withdraw our patrols from

Thassa?”

Samos looked at me, and the look was as cold and hard as Gorean steel.

“No,” he said, “I would not propose that.”

“Excellent,” I said.

The captains looked at one another.

“Let there be peace in the council,” said the scribe behind the great table,

taht before the now-empty five thrones of the Ubars of Port Kar.

“I have less interest in piracy, I gather, than many of my collaegues,” I said.

“Since my interests are substantially in commerce I, for one, would welcome

peace with Cos and Tyros. It seems not unlikely to me that these two powers may

well be weary of war, as Samos informs us he is. If that is true, it seems they

may well accept an honorable peace. Such a peace would, I note, open the ports

of Tyros and Cos, and their allies and others, to my ships, and of course, to

yours. Peace, my captains, might well prove profitable.” I regarded Samos. “If

an offer of peace is to be made to Cos and Tyros,” I said, “it is my hope that

it would be genuine.”

Samos looked at me strangely. “It would be genuine,” he said.

The captains murmured among themselves. I myself was taken aback.

“Bosk,” said Samos to the group, “speaks well the advantages of peace. Let us

consider his words with care, and favorably. I think there are few of us here

who are not more fond of gold than blood.”

There was some laughter at this.

“If peace was made,” challenged Samos, “which of you would not keep it?”

He looked from man to man. To my surprise none denied that he would keep the

peace, were it made.

It then seemed to me, so simply, that there was for the first time the

possibility of peace of Thassa, among her three major Ubarates.

Somehow, suddenly, I believed Samos.

I was astonished but it was my sensing of the group that, if peace were made,

Port Kar would keep it.

There had been war for so long.

None laughed.

I sat numb in the great curule chair, that of a captain of Port Kar.

I regarded Samos, wondering of him. He was a strange man, that larl of a man. I

could not read him.

“Of course,” said Samos, “the offer of peace will be rejected.”

The captains looked at one another, and grinned. I realized I was again in Port

Kar.

“We will need one to carry the offer of peace to Cos, where he may now find

joint audience with the Ubars of both Cos and Tyros,” said Samos.

I was scarcely listening now.

“It should be one,” Samos was saying, “who has the rank of captain, and who is a

member of the council inself, that the authenticity of the offer shall thus be

made manifest.”

I found myself in agreement with this.

“Further,” said Samos, “it should be one who has proved that he can take action,

and who has in the past well served the council.”

I scratched with my fingernail in the wax, breaking up the bits of charred paper

that had bee the note I had burned in the candle flame. The wax was now yellow

and hard. It was something past daybreak now, and I was tired. They gray light

now filled the room.

“And,” Samos was saying, “it must be one who is not afraid to speak, one who is

worthy representative of the council.”

I wondered if Samos himself might be tired. It seemed to me he was saying very

little now.

“And,” Samos went on, “it should preferably be one who is not well known to Cos

and Tyros, one who has not angered them, nor proven himself to them as blood

enemy upon gleaming Thassa.”

Suddenly I seemed awake, quite, and apprehensive. And then I smiled. Samos was

no fool. He was senior captain of the Council of Captains. He had marked me, and

would be done with me.

“Aand such a one,” said Samos, “is Bosk -- he who came from the marshes. Let it

be he who carries peace on behalf of the council to Cos and Tyros. Let it be

Bosk!”

There was silence.

I was pleased at the silence. I had not realized until then that I was valued in

the council of captains.

Antisthenes spoke, who had been first on the roll of captains. “I do not think

it should be a captain,” he said. “To send a captain is equivalent to sentencing

him to the bench of a slave on the round ships of Cos or Tyros.”

There was some muttered assent to this.

“Further,” said Antisthenes, “I would recommend that we do not even send one who

wears the twin ropes of Port Kar. There are merchants of other cites, voyagers

and captains, known to us, who will, for their fees, gladly conduct this

business.”

“Let it be so,” said various voices throughout the chamber of the council.

Then all looked at me.

I smiled. “I am, of course, highly honored,” I began, “that Noble Samos should

think me, that he should nominate me, doubtless the lowliest of the captains

here assembled, for a post of such distinction, that of bearing the peace of

Port Kar to her hereditary enemies Cos and Tyros.”

The captains looked at one another, grinning.

“Then you decline?” asked Samos.

“It only seems to me,” said I, “that so signal an honor, and a role so weighty,

ought to be reserved for one more august than I, indeed, for he who is most

prominent among us, one who could truly negotiate on equal footing with the

Ubars of powers so mighty as those of Cos and Tyros.”

“Do you have a nomination?” asked the scribe at the center table.

“Samos,” I said.

There was laughter among the chairs.

“I am grateful for your nomination,” said Samos, “but I scarcely think, in these

troubled times, it behooves he who is senior captain of the council to leave the

city, voyaging abroad in search of peace when war itself looms at home.”

“He is right,” said Bejar.

“Then you decline?” I asked Samos.

“Yes,” said Samos, “I decline.”

“Let us not send a captain,” said Antisthenes. “Let us send one who is from Ar

or Thentis, who can speak for us.”

“Antisthenes is wise,” I said, “and understands the risks involved, but many of

the words Samos has addresssed to us seem to me sound and true, and chief among

them his aassertion that it should be a captain who conducts this mission, for

how else could we so easily prove the seriousness of our intentions, if not to

Cos and Tyros, then to their allies and to undeclared port and cites on the

islands and coasts of gleaming Thassa, and to those communites inland as well,

with whom we might well improve our trade?”

“But,” said Bejar, “who among us will go?”

There was laughter in the council.

When it was silent, I said, “I, Bosk, might go.”

The captains regared one another.

“Did you not decline?” asked Samos.

“No,” I smiled, “I only suggested that one more worthy than myself undertake so

weighty a task.”

“Do not go,” said Antisthenes.

“What is your price?” asked Samos.

“A galley,” I said, “a ram-ship, heavy class.”

I had no such ship.

“It will be yours,” said Samos.

“--if you can return to claim it,” muttered a captain, darkly.

“Do not go,” said Antisthenes.

“He will have, of course,” said Samos, “the immunity of the herald.”

The captains said nothing.

I smiled.

“Do not go, Bosk, Captain,” said Antisthenes.

I already had a plan. Had I not had one, I should not have volunteered. The

possibility of peace on Thassa was an attractive one to me, a merchant. If Cos

and Tyros could be convinced to make peace, and it could be held, my fortunes

would considerably increase. Cos and Tyros themselves are important markets, not

to mention their allies, and the ports and cities either affiliated with Cos and

Tyros, or favorable to them. Further, even if my mission failed, I would be

richer by a galley, and that a ram-ship of heavy class, the most redoubtalbe

naval weapon on gleaming Thassa. There were risks, of course, but I had taken

them into account. I would not go as a fool to Cos and Tyros.

“And,” I said, “as escort, I will require five ram-ships from the arsenal, of

medium or heavy class, to be captained and crewed by men selected by myself.”

“Whic ships,” asked Samos, “are returned to the arsenal upon the completion of

your mission?”

“Of course,” I said.

“You shall have them,” said Samos.

We looked at one another. I asked myself if Samos throught he was so easily rid

of me, one who might challenge him, senior captain, in the council of captains

of Port Kar. Yes, I said to myself, he thinks he is so easily rid of me. I

smiled to myself. I myself did not believe he was.

“Do not go, Bosk, Captain,” pleaded Antisthenes.

I rose to my feet. “Antisthenes, Captain, “ I said, “I am grateful for your

concern.” I shook my head, and stretched. And then I turned to the captains of

the tiers. “You may continue your business now without me,” I said. “I am going

to return to my holding. The night has been long, and I have lost much sleep.”

I gathered up my cloak, and my helmet, it was the captain’s crest of sleen hair,

and left the chamber.

Outside I was joined by Thurnock and Clitus, and many of my men.

12
  
 
I Fish in the Canal

It was late at night, two nights after the unsuccessful coup of Henrius

Sevarius.

I was waiting for my ships, and those of the arsenal, to be made ready for my

trip, my mission of peace, to Cos and Tyros.

In my role as captain I was often about the city, accompanied by Thurnock, and

Clitus, and a squad of my men.

Until the formation of the council guard, the captains and their men would have

for their responsiblity the maintaining of watches throughout the city.

Even before the emergency session of the council, the night of the unsuccessful

coup, had concluded, slaves, instructed by men of the arsenal, were raising

walls about the various holdings of Henrius Sevarius. His wharves, moreover,

were, with arsenal ships, almost immediately blockaded by sea.

Now, from the height of one of the investing walls, some hundred yards from the

high bleak wall of one of the holdings of Sevarius, said to be his palace, I,

with Thurock, Clitus, and others, by the light of Gor’s three moons, observed

the opening of a postern gate. At the base of the wall, extending for some

twenty yards, tehre was a tiled expanse, which suddenly dropped off, sheer, into

a canal, where it might give access to the city or sea, by sea gates. We

observed, in the light of the three Gorean moons, some five men emerging from

the tiny iron gate. They were carrying something in a large, tied sack.

Slowly they made their way toward the edge of the canal.

“Stop, men of Henrius Sevarius!” I shouted. “Stop, Traitors!”

“Hurry!” cried one of them. I recognized his voice, and his frame. It was

Lysias, friend of the regent Claudius, client of the Ubar Henrius Sevarius. I

saw another man look up in alarm. It was Henrak, he who had betrayed the

rencers.

“Hurry!” I said to my men.

I, followd by Clitus and Thurnock, and others, leaped over the wall and ran

toward the edge of the canal.

The men were now hastening forward, to hurl the sack into the dark waters.

Thurnock stopped long enough to draw his great bow. One of the men, hit by the

arrow, spun away, rolling across the tiles, snapping the shaft.

The others, now at the edge of the canal, with a heave, flung the sac far out

into the water.

A crossbow bolt slipped through the air, passing between myself and Clitus.

The four men now turned and began to run back toward the postern gate.

Before they could reach the gate Thurnock’s great bow had struck twice more.

Lysias and Henrak, and no other, fled back through the gate.

One of the bodies Thurnock had struck lay dark, sprawled on the tiles, some

fifteen yards from the gate; the other lay, inert and twisted in the shadows, at

the very portal itself.

“Knife!” I said.

I was handed a knife.

“Do not, Captain!” cried Thurnock.

Already I could see the sleek, wet muzzles of urts, eyes like ovals of blazing

copper, streaking through the dark waters toward the bag.

I leaped into the cold waters, the knife between my teeth.

The sack, filling with water, began to sink, and, as I reached it, it had

slipped beneath the water. I cut it open and seized the bound arm of the body

inside it.

I heard an arrow flash into the water near me and heard a high-pitched pain

squeal from one of the web-footed canal urts. Then there was the sound of biting

and tearing and thrashing in the water, as other urts attacked the injured one.

Knife again between my teeth, pulling the bound thing from the sack, I shoved

it’s head above water. It was gagged as well as bound, and I saw its eyes wild,

inches over the murky waters of the canal. It was a boy, perhaps sixteen or

seventeen years old.

I brought it to the edge of the canal and one of my men, lying on his stomach,

extending his hand downward, caught him under the arm.

Then I saw Clitus’ net flash over my head and heard the confused protesting

squeal of another urt, and then Clitus, again and again, was thrusting into the